I had believed, yes… I had believed that by jumping into the void, by giving up everything down to my last breath, by letting my body merge with absence, I would finally be free — finally torn away from this too-tight skin, from this saturated memory, from this exhaustion of being.
I had imagined that this leap, this ultimate refusal, this finger raised in the face of the universe, would be enough to untie me from everything. To cleanse me. To erase me.
But no.
This world — this moist, slow, tender and unbearable world — had not let me go. It had not slammed the door in my face. It had not screamed its verdict. It hadn't even resisted. It had simply… caught me.
And that was its entire power.
It hadn't grabbed me by the throat, it hadn't imprisoned me with chains of stone or orders of iron. No. It had held me back without violence, without cry, without anger.
