Some are born with a chasm, an unbridgeable divide in the walls of their existence

One fateful day, you will awaken burdened by the weight of the entire world, your fragile chest struggling to bear the load. With each breath you take, you cling to the hope that it's merely a passing nightmare, just like the countless dreams that have haunted you. From the very onset of your existence, you were bestowed with a curse, one that painted your dreams with hues not entirely different from reality, bewildering to the extent of involuntary tremors. Yet, they remain as ethereal as your feelings—contrived and magnified.

Do you recall those moments of hysterical sobbing, the frenzied dashes to your parents' bedside in the early hours of the morning? Those were but dramatizations, born of irrational fears that gripped your timid, anxious childhood. Your fears, though, were figments of your imagination—phantoms that haunted your psyche. You feared the specter of death, the looming darkness, the demise of a loved one should they falter in keeping to their habitual rendezvous. You dreaded the notion that love might elude you, and you carried the burden of being cursed from the very moment of your birth. You were afraid of life itself, so much so that it overshadowed your existence.

I remember it all too vividly, as if I were the same person. The night-time tears, the heart-rending cries of a child not yet a decade old, echoing at the break of dawn. The anxiety that gripped you, fearing your heart might cease to beat amid the tumultuous flood of inexplicable emotions. I recall the warmth that enveloped our home, the sun's rays that never seemed to wane. And how your spirit seemed to shatter when you dared to be happy, as if such joy were alien to your very being.

Every facet of that life remains etched in my memory—the sense that life stretched out before us, long and filled with endless possibilities. The embraces and kisses of our relatives, the unwavering acceptance that came with being a child. The strength of our father, the boundless energy of our mother, the cacophony of our siblings, and the novel sensation of being contentedly full.

It's a daunting prospect for me to accept that we are one and the same, and sometimes, the only semblance of logic that binds us after 17 years is that very same curse. Some are born with a chasm, an unbridgeable divide in the walls of their existence, while others have but a small window, tightly shut to ensure peaceful slumber. We grow and evolve, yet that chasm endures, an immense void that welcomes chaos. We continue to exist as a tumultuous mass, adrift in the vast emptiness of the night, sharing it all—the disconcerting inner void, the heightened sensory perception of the world around us, the vibrant colors, the resonant sounds, and the boundless empathy for every living thing.