surrender

In the past year, my inner world has collapsed like a tower of glass shattering in an instant, a self reduced to fragments even as another struggles to take form. I find myself unmoored, with the ghost of my former being fading away more swiftly than any new spark can ignite. Such perpetual disequilibrium transforms the quotidian act of posing as a contented, vigorous human into a labor of exquisite torment; each gesture, every utterance, demands an almost unbearable measure of deliberate exertion. I am, in both spirit and body, utterly fatigued, a weariness compounded by the meager reservoirs of ferritin flowing through my veins.

And yet, is it not the very essence of art to indulge in such exquisite self absorption?

I now squander countless hours each week mastering the art of abstinence, a pursuit that, in the depths of my despair, had scarcely troubled me amid the bacchanalia of former passions. I find myself locked in a relentless struggle, torn between surrendering entirely to the dissolution of my being and clinging to the vestiges of all that I once revered. The voice that once anchored me, a voice that would have sounded a clarion warning against excess and cautioned me against dooming another to such a fate, has diminished into a mere murmur. Now there is space only for a singular version of me, for I have long been seduced by the allure of extremes.

Is this, perhaps, the final trial before one embarks upon a life of austere, almost monastic retreat? I chose him, and I remain enveloped in the mystery of what that choice may ultimately signify.

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