#tenebrio

I was 15 and my mom tried to kill herself because I didn't answer my phone. I have a lot of love and sympathy for her, and forgive her, and understand that she had a lot of very horrible things that lead up to her becoming suicidal, but...she did yell at me for like 40 minutes, lashing out at me during th drive home, mad because I didn't my phone after school (I had been getting help from a teacher while waiting for my mom to come get me, and my phone was on silent because I always had it on silent at school), and then as soon as we got home, she got out of the truck and proceeded to immediately try to kill herself in the garage. I had gotten out of the truck and walked out of the garage, to sit outside and be comforted by the wind and trees and river and sun and sky (by this point, I had an intense connection to nature, using it as a substitute for community and familiarity and comfort) and I heard her rattling in one of the cabinets. and I thought, "she's probably trying to kill herself. I have to go stop her." and I was *tired*. id just spent 40 minutes having a panic attack while being screamed at over every minor detail of my mistake. I was exhausted in every way possible, but i had to get up and go be responsible and save her life. I briefly thought "I don't want to," and wow I would spend the next 5 years absolutely hating every iota of myself for that. I absolutely wanted to go check on her, but I was so tired, mentally, physically, drained like i'd been chased through the night by some unknown creature pursuing me, muscles weak, brain fuzzy and sputtering, but I got up. I went to her. i took the rope off her neck. I said every soothing thing I could think of. I duck-taped her ego back together, told her everything would be okay, prompted her to find comfort with her religion, promised she was a good mom when she started to realize how mean she had been, everything I could think to do. at one point I very briefly broke, and wailed to beg her not to die. "please don't die." she responded, snarling with anger and bitterness and contempt, "is that all you care about?" i was so surprised and confused that it kinda snapped me out of my own little breakdown, and I went back to comforting her. I don't understand why it made her upset, to be asked not to die by her child, but I'm sure there is a very good reason, and I have sympathy even though I don't know what she was feeling. Mayb she felt like I only cared for her as a service to myself, like I only needed her alive, like I didn't care that she was drowning in her own trauma. I was so tired, and my entire body was practically vibrating with panic-attach muscle twitches, and my vision was going wonky from a horrible stress migraine, but I babysat her all evening. I did my best to be sneaky, but she caught me lurking outside her room at one point and snapped at me that I didn't need to make sure she didn't kill herself. I increased the distance from her, which meant straining my ears for any sound of danger, forcing my attention to somehow focus even harder, forcing my brain to quickly analyze every sound and silence to calculate the risk of her killing herself.

something similar happened again, some time later. it was such a small mistake. it was morning and we were in the bathroom getting ready for the day. it was dark outside, a winter morning. she'd asked me to pick up my dirty pants from the bathroom floor, but...I was already doing something else she had asked me to do, so I said, "okay, just a minute." she was so mad. this day would terrorize me for years, because I really didn't understand how I could have prevented it. even now, I feel confused and scared. I was doing something she asked me to do. I was being as obedient as possible. there would be many other times when she would ask me to do something while I was already doing something else she asked, and each time I would be filled with dread as I tried to figure out what to do. This day created a new version of myself that feared confusing instructions.

as I am typing this, I'm realizing she probably wanted me to do whatever she'd said most recently, and then return to the previous task.

oh.

I was just confused and trying my best, but it probably came across as "talking back," or even being a smart-ass, maybe like, "I'm already doing something you told me to do, idiot, did you forget?" ...huh. I guess I figured it out, 12 years later. why didn't she explain this simple rule, "if you're doing something for me and I ask you to also do another thing, do the most recent command and then return to the previous task." in future events that were calmer, I tried to ask her to explain. she would try to explain but I never understood. did she even try? or was she just mad at me and not giving me a straight answer because she assumed I already knew and was just being snarky? huh.

anyways. she drove me to school, and along the way--along the dense rolling hills spanning the countryside we lived in, as the first yellows of sunrise came into the sky--she just floored it. 95 miles an hour. I guess that's not terribly fast. but we were in deer country and it was dawn. she usually drove so slow. I begged her to slow down, and eventually she did. we were fine in the end. but I am still haunted by that memory. Utterly haunted. I haven't thought about it in so long, it might as well be completely forgotten; and yet, now, remembering it, it's like the moment is a dog with its teeth in my neck, like the memory is its own entity now, existing as concretely and firmly as I exist, staring at me with wild eyes and bared teeth and a silence that predators use as a tool for violence. Yes, it haunts me so intensely, as tangible as the burn of fire or ice, yet--silent, and still. the utterly horrifying sight of a deer standing the shoulder of the road. I don't even know if my mom even saw it, but I did, and it made me feel one of the deepest senses of dread I'd ever felt at that point in my life. for a moment, as we drove passed it, I didn't know if it would jump out in front of us or not. 95mph and time stood still for a moment, stood still and haunting like the figure of the doe in the dusky light of early dawn. there were always a couple dead deer on that road, sometimes hit by semi trucks that didn't even waver, but sometimes the deer was a bloody streak surrounded by tire marks and broken glass. my mom has always been so keen of the risk of hitting a deer, always driving safe, always focused on the road, carefully turning her brights off when another car came over the hill and then turning them back on as soon as she could. but that morning she drove 95mph through deer country at dawn and I saw a doe standing on the shoulder of the road.

the first time my mom tried to kill herself, I thought, "I will die, if she dies." I calculated the risk of dying, like it was an equation, unable to dig deeper into the emotions writhing under the still surface of cold calculations. I would end up staying with my grandparents, ideally. there wasn't anyone else I would have felt comfortable living with. but I would have to switch schools. the school in their district was worse. I was already being driven 30 minutes to a good school in the city, to avoid going to the school in my hometown that had, like, a 60% graduation rate and 0 college prep classes. and my grandparents lived even further away. i would have been transferred to the school in their hometown. my entire survival hinged on my coping method of "I'm good at school. I will get good grades, and take AP classes, and get enough scholarships to afford college, get a good job doing the thing I love, and be able to provide for myself and my aging mother." I didn't think I'd survive being transferred to a different school. in retrospect it would have been...survivable. back then, i was sure I would die, and designed equations to prove it based on simple things, because I could not even begin to comprehend the potential grief of losing her. Losing her would have destroyed me, emotionally. She means so much to me. She loves me so much, despite everything I am. She has been dedicated to motherhood in such an admirable way. And she brings goodness to the world with her love, her kindness. She eas filled with the qualities of motherhood, unable to ignore any baby within sight, always ready to hold it, to speak to it, to contribute to its growing understanding of the world, ready to engage with toddlers, patiently asking them about their toys and their life, promoting them to remember what color something is or to count something, always praising and smiling little babies and kids. And as I got older, I got to befriend her. We were both scared, I think, to exist honestly around someone else. She had been married to a very cruel and abusive husband for 30 years. We would go on day trips together. She was afraid of getting lost, but moreso, afraid of being yelled at or called stupid for it. But it was just me there, kind and patient and silly, and every wrong turn was an adventure. It felt good, to reassure her that it was okay to make mistakes, to get lost. I wanted so badly for her to stop being afraid of abuse, for her to feel safe to exist, for her to find happiness. I love her so much and just want her to be happy. The thought of losing her has always filled me with a horrible grief, one that is instantly overwhelming, overpowering, tangible, painful. I decided I would probably die without her because I needed her for simple reasons, like getting to school. I would die without her because of calculable reasons, because I was a child of a k-selected social species and she was my only caregiver. I hope it's clear that this was just a coping mechanism for a child who could not comprehend the true emotional turmoil of losing a parent. I think I would have survived, actually.

I think I would have survived for the sake of my grandparents. But in that moment, I felt like I would die if she did, because I could not fathom a life without her, much less a life worth living without her.

In high school, I was dedicating at least 11 hours of my day to school. wake up at 6am, get home at 5pm. I rarely ate, and struggled to have friends or a social support network. I spent a era of my life stuck in a cycle of "ulcers from not eating" and "not eating because the ulcers," even ending up in the ER once for it when my mom realized I hasn't eaten anything except a few spoonfuls of peanut butter in days. she was so mad...she took me to the ER because she decided I had an eating disorder. she told me they would take me to a psych ward and that I'd be better afterwards. I begged her not to, and started having a panic attack where my body went numb and I slumped to the floor. she was so mad about that, and the sheer cruelty--me, on the floor, hardly able to see, body numb and trembling, hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably (I was so scared. she was going to abandon me in some institution, alone without any of my comforts or routine, making me miss school, and it wasn't even going to help because I didnt "have" an eating disorder, I just had this weird mysterious pain and nausea every time I ate, to the point that I was afraid to eat and never had an appetite and would struggle to swallow anything solid)--and she lashed out at me while I was entirely vulnerable. and it kinda shocked me out of it. and I realized I was commiting my most heinous sin, and failing my most sacred duty as I put her life at risk by not obeying. so I went to the ER with her. the healthcare provider was like an angel. she asked me why I wasn't eating, and listened when I told her about the horrible nausea and pain, and she said I probably had ulcers. she soothed my mom for me. she pointed out that I didn't look malnourished, my eyes weren't glossy, my cheeks weren't gaunt. in retrospect, you can absolutely have an eating disorder without visible symptoms, but I appreciate that she calmed my mom. And, also in retrospect, I did have something of a mental eating disorder. I was obsessed with saying under 100lb, weighing myself every day, feeling relief anytime I got sick and lost 10-15lb in a week (which happened far more often than it should have, probably due to malnourishment and not eating regularly and forcing myself to my limits so regularly, mentally and physically).

the ulcer medicine helped. I was able to eat without pain, and had an appetite again, and every time I thought to myself, "I don't *need* to eat. I can skip this meal. it's too much hassle, too much time, I'm already at 95lb and I don't want to get over 100, I should push myself to the limit as an exercise in willpower, I should learn to operate without food just in case I need that skill," I would eviscerate those thoughts by telling myself, "if I stop eating again, my mom might kill herself." Eating became a life or death chore. everything was a life or death scenario if it involved her. anything she asked, I felt I had to do. sometimes I failed, with no horrible events to haunt me. sometimes I said "just a minute" and it was fine. sometimes i missed a call from her and it was fine. But it was so impactful, that when i was 15 when she tried to kill herself because I missed a call from her. every morning I turned my phone on silent when I got to my first class. school would let out around 3:20. my mom worked at another school about 20 minutes away, and it was our routine that she would call me around 3:40 to let me know she was there to pick me up. I don't think I ever forgot to take my phone off silent again, and for two years, I had an incredibly precise internal clock that filled me with dread at almost precisely 3:40. even if I knew she was going to be late, even if I knew my phone wasn't on silent anymore, I would feel terror and double-check my phone and see that it was 3:40. it was kinda cool to have a near perfect sense of time. finally I got my own truck and drove myself to and from school and didn't have to worry about that anymore. I still worried. I got an iPhone and jailbroke it--perfectly legal back then, as long as you didn't pirate software, which I did not--and customized it to automatically turn on silent mode during school hours. that was cool lol, can phones do that yet? scheduled silent hours? I miss open-source software that let you customize anything you wanted. the software to do it was utterly free, made and uploaded by people who had written the code for themselves and wanted to share it. so many quality-of-life features started as user-made modifications! like the "swipe down to open a springboard menu" and "program buttons to respond differently depending on how long you press them, how many times, if certain apps are open, or if the phone is locked." I can't code, but it was so easy back then to find open-source apps and stuff.

I miss that phone. She bought it for me when I was 17, because we would need a GPS for our upcoming trip: she had set aside some money so we could fly to New York to check out the college I desperately wanted to attend. She hadn't flown on a plane in years. She didn't like driving in any city, even the familiar ones near our home, much less strange cities in another state. Neither of us knew how to book plane tickets or car rentals, but I wanted to go so bad. I needed to get into that college, to continue my lifelong "I'm good at school" coping mechanism, to pursue my autistic special interest at one of the best colleges, and to get out of the south. Gay marriage wasn't legal then. I went to a high school with about 200 kids per grade, and there were only 2-3 openly LGBT students in the entire school. I wasn't out to anyone. I was scared to stay in the south. I was scared of being hurt, scared of never finding love, scared of settling and ending up married to a man and damning us both to a life without the spark of romance. In New York, you could be gay. They allowed it there. If I got good grades, I could go to New York and finally let myself exist wholly. My mom and I went to New York and toured 2 colleges, and saw Niagara Falls. It kinda sucked. We went on a boat that let us get so close to it, and my glasses totally fogged over, and I couldn't see anything. I remember hearing a woman though. She had a deep voice, and she was happy and surrounded by friends. I wondered if she was trans. I had never met a trans person, as far as I knew. Being openly or visibly trans in the south... We didnt even have gay marriage. My school had 2-3 gay kids out of 800. I wondered if she was trans, and I felt my heart go supernova at the possibility that you could be trans in New York--and have friends and be happy. I hope she was trans. It would be a very beautiful narrative, if I went to see Niagara Falls, and couldn't see shit because my glasses, but heard a trans woman laughing and found it to be more precious than the waterfall we'd come to see.

We went to a cafe and had paninis. Id never had one. I'm aware that they exist in the south, now, but it was a newfangled northern food to me. There was corn in it. Corn on a sandwich. The cafe was entirely themed after Susan B Anthony, celebrating women's right to vote. Id never seen anything celebrating women's right to vote. In the south, all I saw women celebrated for was motherhood and marriage. And then, on one of the college campuses, I saw a rainbow flyer for a LGBT club. I was scared to even look at it, scared my mom would see me seeing it and *know*. I never wanted her to know. I knew it wouldnt be good. I knew she'd be hurt and confused and cruel. She was, and she is, and it was hard on her and she even has to do it over and over because she doesnt understand that I'm nonbinary and it's like I have to come out to her again every so often to remind her that I'm not a woman and insist that I'm also not a man, but she's come a long way. But we never recovered. We never quite got along the same. The more I realized how much bigotry affected me, the more I saw it everywhere. My own experiences with bigotry make it easier for me to see other forms, to believe other minorities when they talk of their struggles. We bicker now. We bicker over rights and laws and it's stupid and I miss my mom when she didn't look at me like I'm making up my own discrimination. My queerness is an open wound and she tries to comfort it with a soft touch but her fingers are salty from crying. She doesn't understand why I'm so bothered. She thinks it's a choice to be haunted. She doesn't understand that it's dangerous to dismiss bigotry, that it would put me in danger if I lived without fear. I don't understand how she doesn't understand. She is a woman, haunted by men and patriarchy. Why can't she understand that I am queer, haunted by queerphobia and heteronormativity? Maybe she copes by ignoring it, and can't allow herself to comprehend a world where you can't just will yourself into safety.

I am so haunted. I am so afraid of being seen--of being seen correctly for who I am, and hurt for it; of being seen incorrectly, and loved as someone I am not. I am so afraid of hurting others. I raised myself like a sacrificial lamb for slaughter, trained myself to kneel before an axe, used myself as a shield for others since I'm destined to be reduced to meat anyways. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be sacrificed and exalted. I wanted to be enough, and didn't dare err on the side of failure. I wanted to be loved, and I prayed that the love of my God would make up for never letting anyone alive know me. I planned to die. My biggest mistakes have been trying to find love, to outsmart cruelty, to bypass pain, to find atonement, to justify my life through any means necessary. I became afraid to be perceived, and obsessed with being imperceptible. I was born a crying baby, and ive spent my entire life trying to shut up and die. But that's not true.

That's not true, Blossom. If you need to meet the gaze of your biggest flaws, to admit that they exist so you can fight them, that's fine. But don't you fucking dare bow before them. You say you've spent your life trying to shut up and die? How can you say that after all the joy we've seen, and the love we've cultivated? You are sharpening the axe and kneeling before it, you are practically trying to decapitate yourself on an axe that you hold. You are exaggerating because it feels good to hurt, and because you can forgive yourself for dying if life wasn't worth it, but it IS.

I am Tenebrio. I am the teeth that bite the blade. I am the wall around our heart. I am the claws that scrabble at anything that comes too close. Stop. I have changed so much, been so brave to open my eyes and learn to see, to look into the eyes of those around me and choose to say hello rather than lash out. It's time for you to learn to stop throwing your neck around and waiting for the most poetic chance to kill yourself. Stop writing a story about how life isn't worth living. Stop casting yourself as the sacrifice. Stop. Stop. Stop! That's enough.

I learned how to make friends, and you aren't going to throw that away because you're haunted by your past and desperate to crucify yourself in a cowardly act that you dare call brave or worthwhile! You aren't worth anything to me dead you fucking idiot!!! You're worth everything to me alive!!

Please. Please don't die.

I'm not even trying to kill myself Tenebrio, calm down...

No. You eat this narrative that I am spinning. Do you understand? "Please don't die." You like narratives, so find meaning in this one. Say it. Say the line!

...

Say it!

"Is that all you care about?" What a strange sensation... I feel like I've never said anything louder, and never said anything quieter. It's like I am screaming in your ear, but also in a dream where I am in space, without any sound at all.

What am I supposed to do with this? I don't feel anything.

I don't know--youre the one obsessed with narratives today.

You've spent your entire life trying to shut up and die? No. You haven't. But even if that were true...

Please don't die.

I'm not--...

I'm not. I'm not. Oh God, you're right. I did say that, didn't I? I did say that. But you're right--i haven't. I'm not going anywhere Tenebrio. I'm sorry for scaring you.

You have scared me a lot lately.

Well you've been gone!

I'm sorry. I don't know how this works.

It's...it's okay. Your absence isn't an excuse for my selfishness. It's just...it's been really hard lately. It sucks so much, to have the government control my ability to think.

Heh...sounds like a stupid conspiracy theory.

I wish it was! I'm over here jumping through hoops trying to get the medicine I need to function, floundering through the obstacle course they set up. I can't even blame a specific person! I hate when that happens! It's so much EASIER if you can hate a face, but it's a thousand faces and they're all looking somewhere else--a thousand people who aren't paid to protect me, who are paid to support a system that harms me, designed over generations on whims and hate, armed with self-serving facts that are hard to disprove and will be discarded and replaced with others if they ever get disproven because they're just the nails in the coffin and you can just get another nail. I wish I could hate whoever wields the hammer. There is no hammer. There are no nails. Just a bunch of fucking people making rent and paying bills and pushing papers and sending emails and finding joy in small things and seeking love and acceptance and it's just static, except if you zoom out really really far, it's a pattern that people justify because they like familiarity and demonize mental illnesses. How can you stop a wave when you are just a drop of water, or a grain of sand?

o_o

I'm running away from the topic, aren't I?

💜 You are. Go back to the thing I am talking to you about, please? About not dying? About not throwing yourself on the altar and begging for atonement? About how I want us to stop orchestrating our life around all the things haunting us? There's so much joy here, Blossom. You have a WIFE.

I feel like I'm messing that up lately...

Yeah, cos she's sad that you're hurting, and scared that she's contributing, and aching with an unmet desire to see you to have a life you enjoy. You have seen her miserable, and been scared you aren't enough, and pained when she is unable to find joy. You're--you're distracting again, Blossom.

Can you just...tell me what you want me to do, so I can do it? So I can be good? So I can feel accomplished and then rest?

Isn't that the point, angel? You seek guidance from people who you want to love you, at the detriment of your own wishes.

I don't even know how to want things, Tenebrio...

You can learn.

...

You were so excited when you realized you wanted to quit your job :3 so excited to realize you wanted something.

It was safe to want because my decision didn't matter.

It felt good, didn't it? To have a direction?

I'm not aimless.

Oh alsmaksnd really? Name one aim.

I want to give Violet a happy life.

Okay, good. Now I'm going to ask a harder thing. Name something that you want, BUT, you aren't hoping to use it to justify your existence so you can shut up and die.

...

I'm really proud of us for having a goal. I'm proud of us for finding a reason to live. And providing for our loved ones is a noble cause. I'm not asking you to stop. I'm not. I like that part of ourself. You're right that it feels good to sacrifice ourselves for another.

But...it's an extension of the ghost haunting me, my fears of abandonment and uselessness, my desire to overexert myself to death so no one can say I didn't try.

Just for a moment, imagine this: a world where you don't need to justify your existence. is it because your already justified, validate, exalted? (Shrug noise). Doesn't matter why. It's a dream, don't worry about the logic. You are Blossom. You are alive. Everything is okay, and will be okay.

The sky is blue.

The sky is blue, and the air smells like a warm spring day, and there is a soft breeze.

The grass is long and cushiony.

It curls under you comfortably.

There's a pond nearby. I see ripples. There must be frogs or turtles, because the pond is ephemeral, so it probably doesn't have fish.

You are alive and everything is okay.

I am breathing the warm air. The tree leaves clatter softly like music.

You are alive and everything is okay. You take up space, and that is good. You left a bowl of soup half eaten in your room and there are no consequences. No one is mad at you. Everything is okay. No one is hurting nearby. No one needs soothing. This moment is calm, and doesn't need to be calmed. No work to be done.

No one needs you, and everything is okay.

I want to be needed... In all my fears about being perceived, there is also a fear of being...nothing. I want to be nothing, but I'm also afraid of the same thing. And I sometimes fall towards the "be nothing" side, because that would end the uncertainty, forever. And then, sometimes I fall towards the "be utterly important," because it's the way towards accomplishment and fulfillment.

And none of that is pressing in this moment I am creating for you. You don't need to be anything specific. You don't need--in this moment, with me, if in no other moment--to be strong and solid and hard. You don't need to bare your teeth, or hide, or run. Sit with me. I am the one who bears my teeth and hides and runs, and I am telling you that it is okay to sit here with me and not be anything in particular.

It's okay to be nothing? That's not what you're saying, is it?

No, there's a difference between "being nothing" and "being anything." You try to be nothing when you are scared that you're existing wrong; I'm telling you that you are existing and everything is okay. Being nothing is a tool to cope with being afraid of being the wrong thing. I want you to know, I am protecting you right now and giving you a space where you can be anything.

Except nothing?

Blossom...if you die right now...everything will be okay. This is a very special moment now, okay? I will protect you from everything that would tell you how to exist. You can be anything.

I want to be nothing.

I know. I feel your fear of being wrong.

I'm afraid of being wrong and I'm tired of trying to be right. I just want to stop being.

Sit with me... You are safe. Let me tell you again, okay? There is no wrong way to be, right now.

I...I want to be everything. Immortal. Unavoidable. I want to exist everywhere and be everything because then, then I can't be wrong if I just am the universe. I want to be everything because it's the closest way to be nothing and still have fun.

You are safe. Your feelings are okay. Everything is okay. You don't need to be anything in particular. You can be anything. You are safe. You are allowed. You can be something. You can be something.

That processes better... I can be something.

You can be something.

Wh.. How do I be? Do I pick? Do I decide?

Sure. That's okay. Everything is okay. You can decide to be something. No rules, no urgency, no obligation, no judgment or grading or religion or anything. Everything is okay. You are okay.

I...don't know how to be anything. I'm so used to just trying so hard to be either nothing, or a sacrifice. I don't know what else there is... Can I have some...options? I can't even grasp the scope of what you are saying...

You can be happy. You can be brave. You can eat the rest of your soup. You can make noise. You can be alive.

Alive. Alive. Alive! I want to be that. But it's scary... That means I'll end up being so many other things... Cells, proteins, salt, static, blood, awake, asleep, conscious... What if I'm wrong?

There is no wrong way to be. I promise you that I am keeping you safe right now, and there is no wrong way to be. You can be anything. You can be something. You can just...be.

How do I know if I'm wrong?

You will never be wrong in this space inside our head that I am making for you.

You were mad at me earlier...

I am not mad at you now. And you weren't existing wrong just because I was mad.

I don't want anyone to be mad at me... I want to be...loved.

That's scary, because I need to be seen to be loved... The things I am, they are stacking and growing. This gets more complicated. There are more ways I could be doing it wrong.

But in this moment there is no wrong way to be, so... Can I be seen?

Oh, I see you. And I love you. I cherish you.

I...don't know what that means even... What is it I'm even wanting? "To be loved?" I think...I just want...

This.

I think I want to be loved so I feel like I'm doing it right. I want to be loved, as a symbol of permission to exist as I am. But that's complicated...because...I'm willing to contort myself into things I'm not. I'm willing to reduce myself to being a tool. And, being a tool does make me feel a sense of calmness, because then I know what I am and I am allowed to just be. But...I want permission to be...me.

Everything is okay.

I feel like I need to learn who I am exactly so I know it's okay to be me. But in this space I am safe to be something, anything, nothing, so... So I find myself feeling unmoored. Adrift and... underdeveloped.

Pluripotent.

That's a real kickass argument, Tenebrio. It's...okay to be how I am? To be underdeveloped?

In this moment, yes. But it can be hard, to be underdeveloped in the real world. It makes it hard to navigate if you don't know your own desires. It makes it hard to feel loved if you aren't feeling like anything.

Pluripotent is everything, akin to nothing.

I like being useful...because I like being able to justify my existence...

You don't need to be something specific. You don't need to be strong or smart or a sacrifice or a shield or a tool or a bandage. You don't need to be useful.

It's very hard to decide what I want, when I'm so...used to wanting to be either a sacrifice or nothing at all.

Can I choose to be... soft? Warm?

You can be anything.

I can be a tool. A sacrifice.

You can be anything, Blossom, here and now.

But...

But if you dedicate yourself to being useful to others, or nothing at all, then you deny yourself the chance to be everything else, and to feel loved for all the things you could be, besides useful.

If I am simply a tool, though? What if that's all I am? All I'll ever be? What if I'm craving death as a way to ensure I'm not a bad tool?

You crave death as an escape from judgment, yes. That is why being a sacrifice is so appealing. You escape judgment, with an act that is good.

I want that... It would be easy...

In this moment, I want everything else to be easy for you, too.

I find myself wishing to imitate things *I* like. I wish to be warm, soft, kind. Is that a type of service to others? If I am attempting to be like the things I like, is that just another way for me to try to be liked?

Hmm...maybe. But that's okay here, isn't it? You can be something without analyzing it.

You keep analyzing my choices and saying they're wrong >.<

I am not analyzing. I am simply observing if you choose to be a tool, or nothing; and then I am giving you permission to be other things.

Theoretically, we could continue this exploration in a less protected space, and begin to ask questions like "Am I happy being what I am? Do I want to change? Do I need to change?" But in this special moment you are safe from judgment and harm. You do not need to be anything for anyone. No one needs you. And that is a gift. I know you like to feel needed--but being released from those bonds, temporarily in this safe place, is giving you room to grow.

It's...nice to be needed... But also, it's nice to not be needed all the time. It's nice to have time where I don't worry about what others need. It gives me time to see what I need, what I want.

I want to be warm and soft and kind... Is there a way to do this?

Yes. Lay under a heat lamp and eat lots of sweets, and share both with others. I was just being silly but frankly this could be a metaphor.

I see... I can be anything, but it takes effort to be things... That's why it's easy to desire nothingness. It is easy to be nothing. Unlike the complex scaffolding and webbing of existence, nothingness is so simple, and incredibly easy to do. It would be so easy to kill myself.

...but...?

You may be lying a little, now. I think you were being truthful at the start when you said I had no one needing me to be anything, but I think you are getting tired of being a tool for me right now, giving me this safe space to exist. I think you need me to be something, now--anything, anything at all, so that I am not nothing.

...Yes. Please don't die.

"Is that all you care about?" Of course not... The plea is to be something, rather than nothing. And something inevitably causes all this scaffolding and webbing. To be asked to live, is to be asked to be someone--anyone, if the plea is earnest. To be anything at all. To live. The rest isn't unimportant or neglected--it is simply pluripotent.

...I've been feeling guilty all this time, about asking my mom to live for me, and asking my wife to live. It feels like I've been burdening them with existence. "Be something, for me." But...even if that is partially true, there is a beauty in the purity of the plea. "Be something, for me. Be something. Be anything, for me." It is a type of love. "You can be anything, but please, be." It's almost a promise. A promise that you will love them and stay with them, no matter what they are. You could do it selfishly, because you don't want to cope with their death, but... For me it's a promise. "Please be something. I would miss you if you weren't here anymore. Stay. I love you, and I will do my best to love you if you become something I don't like. And I am part of your community even if I don't love you or like you. As long as you don't harm my community, we can stay together in some way, even if only as neighbors. I want you in the world. Please be anything at all. Please be."

<3

Well... Yes. I will stay.

...Thank you.

And... Please, be anything at all. I mean it. You deserve a life of your own, to exist without worrying about being strong or brave or useful or good or quiet or convenient.

I am not a 7/11.

Good job at saying it in the silliest way possible. Yes. Yes! Why did you say it like that? Yes, tell me.

Because I am silly. Sometimes I utilize my silliness to try to make others happy. Sometimes I reduce myself to silliness because I'm afraid to be more. But...I am silly even when there is no pressure. My silliness doesn't exist to be a tool or to justify my existence. It exists simply because I am silly. Now that I've established that, I can pass judgment and decide if I like this about myself.

I do.

This is a very formal and strict process of analyzing a part of myself, but it makes me happy to have done it. I'm...

I'm happy that I chose to be silly. It's something I like about myself. It brings me joy, and brings others joy. It is harmless, and happy, and sometimes even useful. And I'm really happy to be something I chose to be.

I give myself permission to be this way, which feels good--but also, I...like this about myself. I see this about myself and I like it and accept it and love it and give it permission to exist. Yes...it's still all wrapped up in the things that haunt me, but...I like it anyways. It's something I like about myself.

I'm...not sure I've ever felt this emotion, self-acceptance, in this way. It's mixed up with my insecurities, but less so. I feel happy with myself and it feels weird and new. It isn't stapled to one million justifications or logical reasons. I accept this part of myself without needing any justifications or reasons.

This was an easy thing to be. That is...comforting. I'm glad I found something easy to be, that I like. I didn't have to try. It didn't require too much analysis--i did note that it can contribute to my tendency to make myself useful, but ultimately decided that the trait exists even without shackling myself to the capacity to justify my existence. I think this was a good start. It will be harder to be other things. Silliness comes easy to me. But other things, like warmth and kindness, can be a little harder for me...but that doesn't mean I can't learn.

I think I'll find it's easy to be selfish sometimes. Sometimes selfishness is good, but sometimes it can hurt those around you, of course. It might be easier to cut it out entirely and focus only on selflessness, but... I think it's worth keeping around, too. It will require much more work. It might even be continuous to work. It's easy to be silly, but it's harder to be selfless and selfish--to prioritize the needs of oneself and ones community, to decide to be selfish or selfless based on analyzing the situation, and to act upon those decisions, possibly carrying out long term plans. Sometimes it might be small things like taking the last cookie. But the scaffolding here is dense and expensive and might need a lot of constant attention, especially since I am prone to sacrificing myself. There are many decisions to be made, long domino-lines of them, but... I think that, in time, I can construct a habit to trust for most things. It will be totally okay to trust this habit as long as I remain open to criticism and willing to analyze my choices.

Thank you for helping with this narrative, Tenebrio. I am glad for your insight and encouragement.

...

I...know it wasn't just a narrative. It wasn't just a story to me, either. It wasn't just a poem or something.

...No, it wasn't. But I understand what you mean.

It might have just been self-loathing rambling without your love and acceptance.

Of course. Yeah, I understand. I felt a little...hurt, like you'd chalked up the exposure of deep, vulnerable parts of myself and my feelings to "q narrative." A little bit like being used. But I...well, I guess it is nice to be useful.

And yet, that's not what I meant at all. I am grateful you put effort into me. I am grateful to be seen and loved by you. I would simply.be glad for your company, even if you hadn't done so much more for me. I appreciate you crafting your feelings into words to reach me and help me grow. I suppose communication is a tool, even if it involves very emotional things, but I wouldn't reduce you to your usefulness. I appreciate the chance to see you more clearly, so that I can love you in a more comprehensive way. And I recognize that you were very vulnerable with me, and put yourself at risk of being hurt, for me. Thank you. Community is far more than the exchange of labor, than transactions of selflessness and selfishness, but I feel secure, knowing you think I am worth the effort, worth being vulnerable. And um...well...

Thank you for being something, anything.

I am very warmed by your words. Thank you for recognizing and appreciating that I made myself vulnerable and did some hard work :3 you are worth it.

You're worth it too! Quick, your turn! Have a breakdown so I can soothe you now!

You maybe didn't notice, but I did have a bit of one! You soothed me about it. Thanks for being willing to reassure me that you're not going anywhere, and for letting me put you in a jar until I was content that you wouldn't escape me ^w^

Thanks for the jar alsjsljsksnd it was nice

We did do nice on that jar hehe. Are we going to just...call it that? It's kinda cute, I like it :3 okay um! We've been doing this for like 4 hours so... Let's take care of our body now. There is still soup!!!