It felt strange at first. It felt distant, like I wasn’t inside of myself. I could feel my lungs unfolding, the 6AM air into my throat but I couldn’t taste it. I could always taste the morning air. It leaves a fresh, cool tingling on your tongue. You can only taste it for maybe a second or two and then it’s just air but in that second, you know- you’ve just tasted your day. Well the first morning was flavorless. I’ve had flavorless mornings before, perhaps, more often than not but everything was so precise on that first day. My mind was an observer of my physical self. I felt everything exactly as it was & not as I had crafted it. The moon and the sun appeared to be fighting through my half closed blinds, creating this awkward array of dark & light & every movement I made alarmed me, as though I was not the one controlling my limbs. I was curious to my own motives, like I hadn’t the slightest idea of what would happen next. I mistook this bazaar tingling in my ribs as an other maniac low; I’ve been trained for the past six years to assume any foreign feeling is a wave sweeping over me, with the potential to crash at any moment and drown me in its cold, unforgiving arms. Somewhere, in my subconscious mind, though, I think I knew the crash wasn’t coming this time. I was thoughtful, more than usual… curious is maybe a better word. I was like an infant, discovering things for the first time. I stood, staring blankly over a cup of coffee, only right handed finger tips leaking out of a black insulated fleece to grasp a cigarette, pathetically, shaking like a rehabilitating **** addict as I guided it into my mouth. I looked out over my yard & I felt an urge to smile but I didn't know what there was to smile about, regardless, my lips took the liberty of dancing toward my eyes for me & I liked it. It was real. A real smile, not a mask. I didn’t resent it. It felt right. I was alone & I was smiling. And I think that’s when I realized, it was dying. It was melting from my skin. The demonic, parasitic, misery that has coated me for most of my life, was breaking apart, allowing sun light to penetrate the very fibers of my skin. I felt human & I didn’t understand it. It scared me. I felt my stomach turn & then drop like I was approaching the highest point of a roller coaster & then plummeting down the other side. I was scared because it felt better than anything I could remember & I was scared because I didn’t think I could hold on to it & I was scared because knowing what it was like would surely make the pain feel hotter when it came back. Somehow, despite all of the anxiety clawing at my skull, I also felt fine. So fine that I began to cry & I enjoyed it. And I felt like I wanted to live & see what wearing your own shell is really like.