Stretch

Note: Reader discretion advised.

Nobody told you this.

That the desert will feel this cold at night. A cold that permeates through to the marrow of your consciousness. Till you can't feel anything else but a dense blue haze freezing the behind of your eyes. Till your thoughts start chattering about inside your head, like icicles inside a matchbox.

That you won't know how far you've come until you're too far out to go back. That then it is but natural for you to feel vulnerable. That having experienced your vulnerability, it is a logical progression to pretend otherwise. That pretty quickly you grow into a routine of pretend and feign. That then, one day, tired and weak-kneed, you will give in to feeling whatever it is that you've not been permitting yourself to feel. That whatever it is, it will leave you crying, heaving, retching, will make you want the night to open its arms and take you in.

Nobody taught you anything.

To walk that emotional highrope between overconfidence and depression. To play shadow chess with pieces of yourself. To weave light from drops of darkness. To plunge a knife straight into your heart, watch the blood drip, then pull it right out and bring yourself back to life.

I'm teaching you this.

Fuck around with your mind. Turn it inside out. Try it on now and if it doesn't fit, keep fucking till it does. Feed yourself bits of your heart. See how they taste. Let your feelings simmer on a hotplate till they suit your palate. If something doesn't, spit it right out and pick the next one. In case you thought otherwise, you don't need a soul. Souls are for suckers.

I'm telling you this.

There is no desert.

There is no cold.

There is no you.

Everything's changed.

Nothing's the same.

Go now.