Man, I think I’m smoking a pack and a half a day. I’ve put on weight this past month, too. I’m addicted to coffee—three pots a day. I miss Melissa. Now I’m obsessed with my medical diagnosis. In seven years, I’ll be forty, and that’ll mark fifteen years clean. God, how am I holding it together? I think it’s really over now; there’s no turning back. Alcohol is a ghost from the past that haunts me during those lonely nights in bed—with every sip of that shitty hot coffee and every cigarette I smoke compulsively while listening to music and analyzing myself. I went looking for answers about the splinter that’s been stuck in my mind my whole life, and I found out I’m schizophrenic. I don’t hear voices or see things, but I hear the voice of my own self telling me that maybe schizophrenia isn’t the splinter making me feel so out of place in this world all these years. I think the world is just fucked up. I miss Mari, but whatever—it’s been so many years. I dream about her often and always wake up sweaty and lost. I’d give anything for a sip—or several, or a whole bottle—of that cognac I used to love. I’m getting old and tired of trying to find myself and fix my shitty life.