I feel stupid. There’s a voice in my head screaming, of course this is how it ends. I always had this outcome looming over me. And yet, a little bit of me believed. Or almost did. I couldn’t quite dampen the excitement. That rhythmic thud caused an inextinguishable spark.

I did have reason to hope. Everything looked good. Measured up right. I felt different. So many things I hadn’t experienced before. Surely all the different symptoms could point to a different ending? I thought that might be a reasonable conclusion to draw. I was wrong.

I feel everything and nothing at once. I should know exactly how to do this, but I cannot comprehend how to navigate this path again. Now there’s the agony and the blood and after that there is just nihility. A black hole waiting to swallow me up.

Can I fill another void? Pick myself up. Pretend I’m whole. I don’t know how to scrub from my mind the image of another lifeless fragment of me. I will never decipher how I reconcile all the guilt and death with getting up each day and living my life.