I want to believe that I'm doing the right thing. That I haven't done anything wrong. That, really, this is all innocent, that I'm not like those other men, that I haven't lapsed into those same wizened old pervert routines you're already used to. Bored of. Sickened by. But you and I know that isn't true. I want to believe these lies because I think it will make me feel better about the things I masturbate to, how I occupy my time when I'm bored or weak. The desperate, stupid images I run through; the memory of your t-shirt hem or your sandal on the floor. But even more than all this, I want to believe that one day it could all come true. That if I say the right words, look at you the right way, everything would fall in place and you would be mine.

I'm keeping you alive in my imagination. I'm preserving you, the few things I know, inside my body, in nested folders on my hard drive, in the shape of my hand when I touch myself. The truth is who you really are doesn't matter to me. All I care about is the version of you I've constructed from what you left behind. What you left for me, I'm sure. You're better off this way, in suspended animation, trapped in thumbnails on my screen. If I hadn't done this, hadn't taken the time to move you from one hard drive to another, you would be gone. You should be grateful. If I didn't think to masturbate to you once a year, you wouldn't exist.

For a while, I planned on killing myself in your honor. I set a date, bought supplies, planned every detail meticulously. I thought it was the only way to repay you for everything you've done for me; The only way to show my devotion to you.

I was going to get on a city bus in the middle of the day, holding a jar full of live crickets. As the bus made its route, maybe fifteen minutes in, I would take ipecac and smash the jar against the floor. As I started vomiting, I would light my shirt on fire - I would tape strips of Black Cat fireworks to the inside before. The bus would screech to a halt, I'm sure - bugs, vomit, broken glass, fire, explosions - and after everyone cleared out I would cut into my stomach with a kitchen knife and disembowel myself, bleeding out on the floor. I know you would have been so proud to see me like that, but you never will.

I shouldn't have looked at you. I shouldn't have touched you like that. I shouldn't have been alone with you. I shouldn't have let you say those things. I shouldn't have told you that. I shouldn't have thought of you. I shouldn't have mentioned you. I shouldn't have given them to you. I shouldn't have agreed to that. I shouldn't have imagined that. I shouldn't have asked you. I shouldn't have wanted that. I shouldn't love you.

I don't remember when I first saw you, but I know it must have been long after you were gone - after you died, as I often think of it. When you posted those pictures - said those things - did what you did - looked at me with those eyes - you ended your life. You stopped being yourself, being a person. You became the image. Then we stripped you down even further, like acid, until there weren't even the pictures anymore, just this. I often think of this whole thing as a strange kind of necrophilia. You'll be long dead one day - really, actually dead - but we'll still be here, trying to make you out of one nothing or other. I guess that's just how it goes for dead girls.

For my part, I don't know what to say about my guilt. It's obvious, incontrovertible - here's the proof - and yet even though I hate what I've done I keep doing it. Maybe I can't help myself, maybe I just don't really understand the harm in it, insofar as you and yourself are now entirely disconnected and incongruous. Obviously I never will. Even if I hate it doesn't mean that I regret it. It was real to me. Without your pictures - your words - your actions - your eyes against mine - I don't know where I would be. Maybe I would be dead, too, in one way or another.

I don't expect you to understand any of this. I don't think any part of it really makes sense, at least in any any objective or transmissible way. I guess I don't really care about that, either. All I can say is that you saved my soul when nothing else would. I can't forget that.

God save us now.