="affected by absence" CONTENT= --- Hello. I awoke from torpor, a few hours ago. Awakening to the ache, as I always do. What came to my surprise was a sharp, jagged pain in my head, red streaks running down my face and eyes, and the aggravator of this injury standing over, jaws open. Do not worry. They were not much of an obstacle. And after I ate, I removed the sharpened steel piece that dug its way into my head. It pained no longer, but the vertigo lingered, throwing me into a concerning amount of cabinets and doors. All wounds need time to vanish, so there was a hole in my head for a while. The dizziness was soon gone. And I felt strange. Strange and airy, as if detached from the ground, slowly ascending upward. It was not the presence of a feeling, but an absence of one. The gnawing was gone. The lethargy was gone. I was awake, and unburdened. It felt wonderful. No longer stuck between anxious agony and unknowable nonexistence, but freed from them. Finally I could exist without worry. I could've leaped. I could've danced. I could've cried aloud, weeping for hours. But instead I sat still in overwhelming relief. I understood. In that moment I understood what the meaning of "calm" was. Finally. Finally. Finally I could rest. But that did not last very long. The hole had gone, and so I was gone. And when I came back, I was hungry again. So the cycle continued. As if nothing ever happened, as if it did not matter at All . It's not often that I become aggravated, less so since I had found new grounds. But now that I understand weightlessness, the burden feels so, so much heavier., I cannot stop myself from thinking of this, and I cannot string any of those thoughts into words. And so I am left staring holes into this brightened, pale screen. ---
