there is a particular cruelty in waking from a dream of you. for a moment, i have you back. and all the love i still carry for you finally has somewhere to go again.
then i wake up.
and that is the cruelty of grief. sometimes it gives you back to me for a few impossible minutes, only to make morning feel like another funeral.
i miss you, ba. every day. in every way.
may your feet forget the path. may every road turn against you. may every compass point elsewhere. may every stranger send you the wrong way. may the trees themselves rearrange before allowing you to find me.
on the edge of 33: * gave up the wars that made others powerful. * left corporations to burn without me. * ended a two-year cycle of abuse. * let my own empire sink. * plucked my very first gray hair. * missed the roads and the feeling of being home for holiday. again. became
he told me he knew how badly the townsfolk had hurt me. he knew it back then, when i had already removed myself from the map and his messages went unanswered. he said he was sorry. for what they did to me. and for how easily they paraded me through
she looked at me and said, "i don't think you lost yourself. i think you have just been in pain for so long that you forgot what it felt like to be you. but that is different from being gone. you are still there. i can still