The title is exactly what I wrote once, many years ago, upon a mirror in my home. It stayed there a while. I’d forgotten that I’d done so and it didn’t matter much to me anyway, such a concrete fact of life I saw that statement.

Embarrassment, reflection, only came after my mother had apparently found the words. I hadn’t meant for anyone to. She’d cleaned the large glass off and replaced it with this simple note in marker. Nothing more complex or fanciful needed to be said.

Perhaps this really isn’t art. To me, it is.

These emotions are not unique, though not understood by those who’ve never felt such extended and deep self-loathing; who’ve never believed that God was punishing them for anything. This is what I learned, what I say to those who have the misfortune of understanding:

You do not wish to die.

You wish to live.

It is in the absence of life, which you feel so much pain.

God was not punishing me. I was doing that. God was in the moment that someone who loved me saw a bleeding wound and placed a band-aid upon it, rather than another scratch.

I struggle even still.

Maybe one day.
Maybe one day.



<sub>I share this in part because of a recent illustration by ~MaRaMa-TSG which I colored, CatCF: R-E-F-L-E-C-T, colored. I felt if that artist could be brave enough to expose that, then I could this. I have only ever shared this story with one other person and now they can see the tangible form.

That is not all I have to say on the topic however, just...all I have to say at this time.</sub>