Anthesis of Sadness

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.

It had embraced me — not like a jailer ensuring their prisoner doesn’t escape, but like a worn-out parent, returned from absolutely everything, who still extends their arms... simply because they cannot do otherwise.

And since that moment — since the world had caught me without violence, since it had refused my fall — that warmth had never left me again. It had slipped into my wake like a slow breath, diffuse, inescapable, imposing itself in each of my steps without ever using force.

It was there, all the time, everywhere, like an invisible layer placed between my skin and reality. I felt it, soft and insistent, beneath my heels, on my nape, nestled between my shoulder blades like a hand that didn’t want to let go, even when I staggered.

It also slipped into every breath I stole from the too-quiet air of this world — that warmth lived in me like a stubborn ember, lodged in my chest, tucked into that fold I had never known how to name.

And it didn’t really burn — not like the fire one fears, not like the rage one dreads — no, it persisted, low and quiet, low and dim, like a tenderness that refuses to extinguish.