Literature
Without You
last night without you the world did not end, although every building shook. i'm still picking up loose bricks and bits, cleaning house, mending the yard. even now without you. i feel guilty not inviting you. keeping you in the dark. lying-- or at least omitting truths (joyful truths, to be sure)-- to the face of my old friend. still somehow there was fallout. even the absence of you does some damage. even your shadow shakes tables knocks down a drink or two. and this morning it all felt like a dream. like some quaint, sober nightmare. not completely despairing-- rather nice, to be honest-- but still awful like a knife being removed (at last!) from a wound: you can breathe again, for a minute or so, you think, but now there is a new raw, red horror-- the hot sensation of drowning in your own living blood, suffocating, almost, in your own nourishment, breathless, speechless, as the oxygen betrays you, abandons you suddenly. it's almost enough to ask the nurses to put
![[OPEN] Nathan Embermane](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/68aa7358-d3ca-4d5e-809a-6654197516b5/dgs3axg-7cfe4971-d62e-49c9-90ce-2ee5178360d1.jpg/v1/fill/w_350,h_350,q_70,strp/_open__nathan_embermane_by_r1ck4rts_dgs3axg-350t.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTAyNCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzY4YWE3MzU4LWQzY2EtNGQ1ZS04MDlhLTY2NTQxOTc1MTZiNVwvZGdzM2F4Zy03Y2ZlNDk3MS1kNjJlLTQ5YzktOTBjZS0yZWU1MTc4MzYwZDEuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEwMjQifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.9D0Ne5xJQ61vqmVZP2cdMVbqwZHlSwab2q5-XaM3J7U)
