Aim higher. Do something bigger. Something better. Don’t end up like me.

I neither deserve nor trust joy. It’s the breath before the storm. The gas before the explosion. I’ve lit too many fires to escape life unburned.

There’s a beauty in destruction, an echo of the universe, of how we all began.

Grief did not make me numb; grief made me aware. Life is short. Once we are gone, we are gone forever, so yes, I live free, and I live hard.

Rebirth doesn’t erase the crimes of revenge.

Sacrifices for success are sins just the same.

Let me salvage this broken night with a thread of Maman’s wisdom. Forgiveness. Redemption. Second chances. I won’t become the monster that necessity requires.

Thank Ra she can’t sense my rage, or she would have left long ago. Not that she would have left for long. My ex-employees always return, albeit with a different arrangement of body parts.

I’m bored again. Restless again. And restless leads to reckless.