La mort.

The black hole has its comforts. Weeks of uncertainty grinding me down into some place I never wanted to be—and yet, because I can sit down and write the pain out of myself, watch it dissolve as I hit publish, there’s something almost sweet about it. The suffering gets a shape. A use.

Then there’s the other side: floating because of a girl, or because it’s just one of those clear bright days where everything feels like an unearned gift and you walk around humming to yourself for no reason. Both states feel enormous. Both feel real.

What I can’t account for is this third thing, which is what I have now. No Disney birds circling my head when I leave the house in the morning, but no urge to burst into tears either. Just forward motion. Job. Parties. Music. Women. All of it fine. All of it already familiar. Like the thousandth viewing of a film I once loved beyond reason—I still know every scene, I can still recite every line, but the first-time feeling is gone and it’s not coming back.

I used to be terrified of this. When I was younger I made blood oaths with friends against exactly this fate. And here it is, and it doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would—which is somehow the worst part. Like I finally surrendered a fight I’d been losing for years, lay down on the ground, and looked up at the sky waiting for the final blow. The living death got me. I am a zombie.