it’s strange how seeing that fresh pain, that unblinking bewilderment, makes my own past agony feel both miles away and utterly PRESENT, like a memory etched into the very bone, no longer tearing at me but rather just… there, a kind of deep impression that doesn’t hurt, not like it used to, not with that frantic, almost breathless pulse behind my eyes that screamed that the ground beneath me was perpetually giving way; now it’s just a solid understanding, a silent nod to what was, remembering those early mornings before the sun, when the buzzing in my head was so loud I couldn't even hear the absence, and yet i still set out those two mugs, a ritual, a habit, a desperate grasping at something that felt whole even when the world had cracked wide open and everyone else just kept moving, oblivious, while i just stood there, jaw locked, watching the steam rise from the one cup that would actually be touched.