Begin.

A kind of emptiness surrounds me right now except for its not empty at
all. I'm trapped and surrounded by thoughts that are insoluble. Their
answers don't exist but the pursuit of that nothingness cannot be
escaped. How many times until they are forgotten. How many words will
it take. I sit here in a desperate solitude, quarantining myself from
whatever is around me because I will surely contaminate it with
blasphemy. I wonder if I am sinking, how long the daylight will last.
Nighttime is dark but at least it is lonely. That doesn't make any
sense, I know, but it's hard to rationalize right now. I see before me
a glimmering field of faces that I don't like. So many I wish I never
knew. And I've got to wonder if it's really just me pushing and
fighting outstretched arms, it has to be. Worst of all, I don't even
know I'm doing it when I'm doing it. There's something cold and dead
on the inside, it's touch incinerates any thought, hope, or wish of
truly living. To truly live takes courage and that's one thing I
acutely lack. Somewhere out there the real parts have been lost. I'm
just a sum of parts belonging to other people. My passions, fears,
dreams, they are not my own. They are constructs of expectations and
desires. How long can you pretend. How long does it take to realize
the life you're living isn't yours. That it has been stolen, borrowed,
copied from some master plan.

All that's left is emptiness because that's what's been there from the
very start.

It isn't him.
It's always been like this.
He was a distraction.
He let me pretend.
He played along.
And now he has to be gone.

Now we're back where we began.