On December 15

I held the bottle in an icy palm.

Loss. Too many losses.
Emotional. Then physical.

A small bottle with tiny tablets could end the tyranny—
madness that brings lucidity and confusion in the same breath.

No.
Death was not my goal.

I wanted to stop pain.
I wanted to stop daily tears.
I wanted to stop sadness.
Bury it.

I wanted—simply wanted—
to fill the holes in my heart.

What had bled was empty.

It is the small things, seen clearly, that are holy.
I could no longer see them.

Take one action—a gentle whisper.

Call Joseph.
He knew my soul. He understood. I trusted his steadiness.
I trusted he would not judge. He had the crisis numbers.

I called.
She listened.

Joseph waited two hours.

Calmly, I placed the bottle in the cabinet—
balance returned.

But not forever.

There is a presence that has lived with me from the womb. I never gave it a face or a voice. It has no name. It can sleep in remission for decades, while I work, while I love, while I breathe with the world.

This time.
This now.
The world did not breathe back.

On December 15, 2025, it woke.

Not dramatically.
Quietly.

A culmination, not an event.

The Lodger does not arrive as despair. It arrives as erosion. The world thins. Meaning blurs. Familiar ground becomes unreliable. One stands upright—still unable to find footing.

I do not sit in pity.
I sit in reality.

On December 15, 2025, I did not swallow a bottle of pills.

That matters.

The Lodger? It will always sit at my table. Not as an enemy. Not as a teacher—but a reminder of what requires attention.

Yet, it does not decide for me.

On that day, I carried the ember of life—
small, tender, human-sized.