Ben Breier

I love all of you so damn much. I don’t even know where to begin. I suppose I’ll start with you.

I looked at all the old e-mails and times where I was too lazy to respond to him and my mental destitution kept rising, peeling back new layers of atmosphere with each passing second.

I want to take care of you, and it isn’t because I’m harboring any hidden amorous thought bubbles. But I do have boundless energy for you, as I do for all the close people in my life, and I want to see you peak.

In fourth grade, we often flirted by making fun of a girl on the playground because we didn’t know any better. But somewhere between the ages of 13 and 20, I’d imagine most guys learned how to flirt for real.

I took a page out of the “Jessie Spano Guide To High School” and started to rotate caffeine pills into my diet, replacing meals with them. In the short term, it worked: 30 pounds flew off of me in a relatively quick time frame. I looked thin. Abs started to rise beneath my flesh, and (most importantly) girls wanted to make out with me!

The New York City subway system is a truly joyous contraption. Millions of New Yorkers ride it every day. Unfortunately, many of them are self-righteous pricks that elevate our blood pressure and make normal people want to experience a Bruce Banner rage eruption.

Revisit all the regulars: the blonde cello player you slept with on your first date that you see on the L train sometimes, the tiny redhead who introduced you to sushi bombs in Bushwick, the brunette account executive who used to work at an ad agency you used to work at.

Everything about this person screams “almost” — you “almost” dated; you “almost” fell in love; you “almost” changed your life to be near them; you “almost” drifted through life without engaging with them at all. Like the mythical unicorn, you can never concretely have this person, you can often only grasp at their essence.