O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain,
That shall dis­til from these two ancient urns,
Than youth­ful April shall with all his show­ers

—Titus Andronicus

I lost my life as I knew it, piece by piece, over days and weeks and months. Now things will nev­er be the same. In moments of cri­sis, every­thing has been dis­tilled; what’s gone is gone for­ev­er, and what remains is what I will car­ry for the rest of my life.

And as the threads unrav­eled, I tore myself from the world away, my face unable to bear the bur­den to oth­ers.