Still, there are words left unspoken years after I thought I had completely purged you from my system. Fucking other women was supposed to be my exorcism. My feelings for you were supposed to end. With every intense release of passion there should have been more distance. I made love passionately and intensely in the rapture of deep intimacy to women who told me that they loved me, but your memory is my prison. In the company of friends and associates I feigned indifference to stave off the outward signs of emotional ruin. Fuck her they would tell me, and I would pretend to agree with them. I’ve never been a man to be consumed by any particular obsession. As a fatherless child, I was raised by stern uncles who taught me to control my emotions in the company of men, and be exceptionally stoic in the company of women. Perhaps they would think that I have strayed from their discipline if they ever heard any of my intimate whisperings. Confessions have been told and tears have flowed before love making at 3:00 A.M. Naked and drenched in sweat saying barely coherent words through heavy whispery breaths, an attempted exorcism is in progress yet again.