I guess so too. It aches, and I feel broken still. I broke it, though, I broke myself. Who can give me sympathy, who can hold me when it was all my doing?

Outside the window of my loft I see the understory of the forest. Near the cabin the trees are bare, leaves on the ground. Beyond sunlight shines from the arbutus leaves, oceanspray and holly. I'm in this, suspended beneath the canopy, light just beyond my reach. Out there, hold on, swing through.

It aches. I pictures them on the phone late at night. I see him on the ferry going to see her. I'm on the ferry to Pender, the sun breaking over and the ocean on fire, and I lean out into the wind alone, tears stream down my face. Dawn, the world sleeping, and I'm already going somewhere. Cycling up the island past farmland. On the roadside I pick blackberries, the juice on my face, blood from the thron scrapes. I see them on the couch, his hand hon her stomach. He thinks of me rarely and all she knows is that I was his first and that I was cruel. She hates the monkey on his desk.

I lay on the spit watching a seal at the narrows. The sun is low now, all day I've ridden and my body now aches like my heart. I sleep lightly, aware of the ravens wrestling in the sky above. That seal stays, bobs, big eyes on me while I sleep. One leg across a bike tire, one arm through my pack.

A tear rolls across the bridge of my nose and into my other eye, overflows onto the blanket.

"It only hurts because you haven't found love since him."