while rome burns

The world has felt less real to me since I started working on my masterpiece. With every stroke of the pen it's become less and less solid, while the world I'm creating with my words has only gotten more real. It didn't take me long to figure out that I was sapping the world of its realness to make my own--long enough that my relationships felt like I was watching them through a screen, like we were just actors, however convincing. I could turn them off at any time I wanted.

The more I wrote, the more it seemed that my relationships were just predictable plot devices in a film. My girlfriend would constantly berate me for spending more time on my art than on her--the same one who, when she was real, was so supportive of my efforts, told me I should never sacrifice the integrity of my art.

I barely registered when she left. I'd expected shouting, violence, something. But she just left quietly, without even a note. Everything that was hers was gone. Everything that was mine was left right where it was--not that I touched any of it now. With a world so full of fleeting ghosts, how could I not focus on my art? How could I not make the world of my imagining real?