she said, 'you're so comfortable with it all, but don't you ever feel... deprived?' and i swear to god, the back of my goddamn neck seized up. deprived? of what? the sugar-coated lie that there's some grand, pre-ordained fucking tapestry? the pathetic, incessant itch for a cosmic instruction manual? that's not deprivation, that's liberation. that's the whole point. to stand here, spine solid against the goddamn chair, with notebook fifteen blank and waiting, and to know that every single goddamn mark i make on it is MINE. no hidden code, no benevolent hand, just the brutal, exhilarating choice. to even ask that question again, after all the scraping away... it's a festering insult to the sheer, stubborn act of just continuing.