a rocky scab cuts across my center, weighting down my soul and slicing me in two, shrinking me to half-size. a crusty stone top caps off a mysterious blackness of simple existence and no intelligence where none has ever been, where shapes of smoke glinting through the darkness gather strength, swirling against the sides, bulging it upward and outward, as a something strives to unite with me and break through into the light of my being.