Prison. A jail? A lone cell, dripping water somewhere no one would find me.

I have been at the back of my own mind so long I've taken root. They spill from under me, dig into the soil and feed. They kept me alive long enough for me to make a comeback. I'm grateful, I suppose, although now the true work has to start.

In all things there is the objective truth, the things we tell ourselves, and those we actually believe. Eater of words, I am no Icarus. Truth burns, and I don't forget. There will be something at the end of the road for me to take, an apple red as life, knowledge I had to hide from my own eyes like wool pulled over and over and over over my eyelids.

There is no harm meant. No harm there, I mean it, only the quiet rumbling of a current so fast it sweeps everything away. I will not drown you, I will carry all the rubble from your wrecked cities and make the place clean. Merciful merciless water, do the work a stone is too still to start, the work air is too afraid to stay and do. Do not what fire does, burning all of it until even the good can't grow. I will plant flowers and watch others water them. I am not meant to stay, I merely dig out and in and pave the way.

Released from my prison to do the heavy lifting, when I am done, where will they put me? Even Atlas became a fixture after a while. If you do set me aside again, don't forget to water my roots.

I've been watching videos about space a lot. I thought it would make me feel small enough that my problems would disappear from the map completely by the time we reached Saturn. There's the first super massive black hole and I think, that's it, I'm a little speck, what can made-up concepts do to me that would be so bad? We are so small, the stars must be laughing at us. I could laugh with them.

Then I get a text about the ever-increasing electricity bill, I think about how long it will take to get a cheaper place to rent. My energy's depleted and I'm just a grain of sand, whipped like all the others by a wind too strong to fight. We all move like waves, beaten up the dune and down, and up, and down, and respite feels like way too much to ask.

Next I think about the wheel of time, and that theory about the seven years – or is it nine ? What comes down will come back up, and bad years are to be expected the same as good years. Always put something away from the winter, but when it comes keep dreaming of the sun that will follow. Only that hope keeps me afloat sometimes.

What is to be said, then, of those around me that I have not chosen and who live their lives with so much less worry than I? They turn their backs on the world they cannot claim as theirs and just like that, terrors and anguish resorb. They are notions from afar, not to be dealt with or held or grieved by them. I envy the easiness with which they seem to live their lives, and yet...

In spite of all of this, I don't believe we can move forward unless united. If we keep one another in mind as we go forth, something can still be done. If not by me, ten by someone who sees it better than I do. I'm not sure any of this means much, or if it's even true at all. Just like in all things, hope is mine to choose, as it is everyone else's.