I require someone to guide and lead.

I wonder how many more there are until I’m at my bones.

I’ve shed yet another layer.

It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I’ll learn to recover.

It’s there, I feel its presence. But I don’t embody it.

To speak of what is.

Mostly to ramble about whatever I can, though there are moments I simply come to speak.

I wonder what I come on here for.

Then, and only then, will I die.

Until I find that missing piece.

And I won’t stop until I complete it.

I will venture of unheard places for years and years as my flesh begins to rot, as my bones give up on me.

That will not be me. Never. Once I free myself, I will explore.

There are people in the world who never get to explore the places they longed to go.

Whenever that day is.

As I tear and gnaw at my skin, one day, I will set myself free.

As the flesh I once wore is embedded beneath my nails, the one I truly am will hopefully escape.

Digging out. Clawing out.

This pit which has swallowed me whole.

I pray that one day I’ll receive a response.

On these blue moons I ask myself what I am.

I figured it was the sex worker who’d done the murder, but it seems not.

Coming to the various conclusions myself as well.

Being told who it was.

I still recall being told.

An assassin, moreover.

All the things you’d expect of an agency.

He was found in a suitcase. His death was clean, deliberate.

I still remember the first case. Gareth Williams, if that’s how you spell it.

And that is a pitiable flaw, one I have to bear the gallows of.

But, the only one I cannot deceive is myself.

I repeat these affirmations to myself in hopes that I will believe it.

I can grasp it subtly, however not wholly.

I know what I am.

I wonder if that will ever change.

I grasp at embers before ever reaching the fire.

I have no inherent personality. Solely specks of what was, and will never be again.

Unlike anything now.

It was pure, raw, and real.

At the time, I felt real. I had an identity. It wasn’t elusive, it was sound. It was grounded.