Shame clung to me like a foul stench. There was a knottiness within the feeling. It was self-inflicted. That was to say, I could cease this feeling at any moment, so I had read. There were pills available one could take too, though never considered. After a certain amount of liquid, the shame dissipated; however, I was trying to be better. I had tasted destructive remedies. They went further than intended.

Frequently, I would hibernate to progress the time. I did not feel a shift until I left my room. Once I encroached into their world did I feel it within me. A pulsating spike that inched ever-nearer to my heart. Questions and uncertainties rose like tides slopping against the sides of a rocky seawall. I held on securely most times. The storm wrenching me from the edges of sanity terrified me deeply. More terrifying was how much I missed it at times. There was a weightlessness within the eye of the storm. I could wrap myself in my blankets of misery and mutilation and sleep until the passing of my days. This was as easy as closing one’s eyes and ignoring the hunger that snarls within the belly, and the urine that overflows through the bladder, most importantly in the moments of ecstatic stillness the breath stops.