I am not being dramatic.
I am being statistical.
I am being the guy
who has run the numbers
and does not like what they say.

I am fifty something
and tired in ways
that do not photograph well.
I carry diagnoses like luggage
nobody wants to help lift.
I have a body that argues with me
and a brain that never shuts up
and a history that takes
at least three dates to explain
and by then
most people have already decided.

I have been loved.
I want to say that out loud
so it does not sound like
I am asking for pity.
I have been chosen.
I have been someone's person.
I have felt the specific gravity
of another human being
deciding that out of everyone
they wanted to be in a room
with me.

And I am grateful.
And I am wrecked.
Because I do not think
it is coming back.

Not because I am unlovable.
I have done enough therapy
to at least argue with that one.
But because love requires energy
and availability
and the willingness to be seen
at your worst
on a Tuesday
when the dishes are still in the sink
and the body hurts
and the squatter in your head
is having a particularly loud day.

And I am tired of auditioning.
Tired of the first date performance.
Tired of curating the version of me
that is interesting enough
to earn a second one.
Tired of the moment
somewhere around date three
when I have to decide
how much truth
is too much truth
and whether this person
has the range
for the full version of me.

Most of them don't.
And that is not an insult.
The full version of me
is a lot.

So I sit with it.
The quiet of a life
built for one.
The way the apartment
holds exactly as much silence
as I put into it.
The way I have stopped
leaving space in the bed
the way you do
when you still believe
someone is coming.

I have stopped believing.
Not forever.
Maybe not forever.
But right now
in this body
in this apartment
in this city full of people
who are all somehow
already taken
or unavailable
or not looking
or looking for something
I do not know how to be anymore.