There are whims like curls jetting from the sun, commands given and rescinded by people who can make or break my career.

There is the tempo of working overtime every day, keeping someone happy every day, and moving forward with a creative project every day.

There is the ever present worrying that being worried or stressed inexorably vomits me into a blacker space, where my long-term memory gets worse by upregulating neuroinflammation in my brain.

There is pain. There is, every day, almost every hour, pain. I never talk about it anymore. There is nothing to talk about. I chose a way of life that is necrosis for my delicate sense of self-preservation. I chose tying my hands at every turn, when all I want is to reach out and kill.

I cannot wish it away.

I cannot drink it away.

And I as hard as I try, to put a bullet between the eye of any half-mad circumstance, I cannot imagine how it can continue as several more howling vermin crest the hill in its stead. There is pain and suffering only to be forgotten, only to be replaced when vanquished. There is steady, deep, dull, aching pain.

And I want it to end.

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