Dear flesh,
I resent that you are trying to kill me. Now, I won't pretend I don't deserve it.
We had fifteen years of my pretending you didn't matter. Then all of a sudden I discovered that I cared about your workings just in time also to discover how much I liked to pour poison down you. We've since had decades of my experimenting with the effects various chemicals have. I acknowledge that this hasn't exactly been fair to you, and I appreciate your ability to absorb and process these things with what my doctor calls "remarkable resilience". Thank you for that.
And frankly, I am pleased with the way that you are shaped, and with the way that others respond to that shape. I should perhaps spend more time sculpting you and less attempting to use you to get a rise out of other people and acknowledge this is my bad. If you really want, we can get back to the routine.
However, as I said, I wish that you would stop slowly murdering me. In addition, while I'm in this quiet room right now with a bunch of people writing, it would be nice if you would stop making weird noises. Again, I won't pretend this isn't my fault.
In my defense, I only meant to go to one bar last night, to hear a friend's band play. The bar I went to before that, the pre-bar, if you will, was just so that I could kill time playing pinball--and here I feel I should digress again to thank you for having good enough eyesight and quick enough reflexes to get us on the high scores list, well done there (it would be nice to come in higher than fourth, though, if you can swing it). I don't think I can be blamed for the third bar, because there was purportedly a horror movie festival and come on, I'm not going to miss that, although I did miss it, but then having shown up it would have been rude not to have a drink. The fourth bar is on me, but I didn't intend to stay long, and it's frankly not my fault that my barista was in the band. I think it's obvious that in that case I'm going to need to stay for a couple of drinks and buy a t-shirt, which I should, again, thank you for filling out so well.
In any event, the noises are the least of it. It's the quiet dying that I'm really upset about. The part where you seem to have decided, all on your own, that it makes sense to slowly strangle my nervous system simply for the crime of ingesting wheat. Wheat! Of all the ridiculous things that I have done to you, this is what you take offense at? Not the caffeine? Not the alcohol? Not the promiscuity? Not the other things that in this public forum I most definitely do not do but in fact do?
I mean, if you asked me to stop those things, said "quit this and I'll let you go", I would. Maybe. I certainly gave up bread with a quickness when you told me it was a problem. I can't help that this world has a certain ambient wheatiness that you seem to continue to react to despite my best efforts otherwise. I mean, I *gave up pizza* for you. Mostly. They make some pretty good ones with potato flour these days but still.
In closing, body, I understand that I am not the best partner here. I have, however, largely acceded to your demands, and it would be nice if you could meet me halfway. Just tell me what else you need me to cut out, the drinking, the womanizing, the late nights, I think we can make a deal here. I just need you to stop, as I said, quietly destroying my nervous system in a fit of pique about my existence in the presence of foods you have taken a strange offense to.
Yr obdt svt,
Nick