Some Dead Ones Must Feel This Way

How many times in 24 hours
(and counting)
can a man be killed by his love?

By my reckoning, there were 12 successful hits
in the first 10 minutes.
The weapons of choice:

        This doesn't work for me;
        you have no say;
        this is a lot of drama ;
        dial it back, like 90;
       I need to hang out with fabulous people who spoil me;
       Ohhh, it is controlling my sexuality;
       OMG, get some perspective
       If the situation is not compelling enough for me to choose, that is not my
          fault;
       I wish you well on this new chapter in your life;
       I would appreciate knowing your intended repayment schedule;
       ... interest (9.44% monthly) as you indicated you would provide;
       All the best,  A----.

I really should have just stayed down after the first three blows.
But no

And so more bullets sprayed, stiletto blades deftly, expertly inserted,
tiny but precise explosives detonated
(A stealthier, deadlier assassin is beyond a fathomless nightmare, I tell true.)
And these assaults from out of the clouds, trees I never saw standing there,
brambles I found myself suddenly in the midst of.
All that and too many more horrors to catalogue here I'm afraid

(We had just made earth trembling love only moments earlier it seemed.)

A few of those would have been
plenty sufficient for the job.  
I thought I was still alive, I guess.  I mean, I stood back up
or remained standing, dead in my shoes, phone to my ear.
And so as long as I stood,
A---- continued to assail with her bottomless arsenal.  I know that I have not seen the full  gorgeous array;
but I saw a lot.

And so I am like a shuffling corpse, a zombie with no driving hunger.
No spirit am I, to be sure and clear.  
I am a bag of flesh.

Two things animate me, keep me shuffling:
       heartsickness
       magical thinking
But they do not work together at once.
It is first one, then the other.  
Their respective shifts are brief and they do not tire.
This is a form of cognitive dissonance I guess (so devaluing to have it named, so pedestrian:
My pain is not unique; but it is most definitely mine.)

And when not shuffling from one essential task of daily living to another
(it is surprising just how few tasks are truly essential to
keep a body shuffling)
I am lying in what I think a coffin must feel like.  A coffin plain and depressing as coffins go.

I believe she MUST call me
and she will tell me in her delightful tones
that she was being stupid,
that she wants it all,
and with that I will live again and
on my face:  
again the smile that lasts.

Tag!

I believe A----- will absolutely NOT call,
without compelling reason, etc.
and dead, essentially, I will stay,
straining pointlessly to remain... tethered?
to this life and this earth
       (what a laugh! like I could go anywhere else.  Why strain?)
by acting out the minimal movements and gestures and pantomimes,
making a passable simulacrum of a man.
Just don't stick around too long, I beg.

And those two basic "thoughts" are all:  She MUST call.  She will NOT call.
Together, they continue at the job A---- has already accomplished with such
beautiful finality.

Maybe if I sent her this poem...

[I am really fucked].