Dear Shadow,

The sensation of cold in the absence of light has never been unfamiliar, yet this time it spills outward from me, spreading frost through the air and hardening sound into sculptures whose shapes I do not recognise. Each hour I spend carving these frozen fragments in search of meaning leaves me bleeding, my hands trembling with fear for what might emerge. I keep carving at them, hours gone, skin split, blood slicking the ice, wondering what will happen if I break them open? What if the pieces tell no story in my voice, but instead speak in another - one that is corrupted, metallic, and void of warmth or detail? Am I to blame for allowing it to claim my body and mind, or is it the fault of the machine-makers who have dimmed the light? Perhaps it is both. Where does it end, and where do I begin?

These thoughts keep me restless through the night and weary in the morning. But it is never morning anymore, just a dim space where tiredness is the only thing that breathes, and then tiredness rots into sadness, and sadness folds into denial, and denial becomes something hard, unmovable, like stone, like bone, like truth. At times it feels like an infinite pool of screams echoing from some private hell.

They say beauty grows from darkness, that all it takes is a smile, but my soil is eaten, my seeds ripped out before they can open, the garden stripped clean by the ravens - cunning, black-eyed and greedy - always there, always plucking, always laughing with their wings. I smile at them anyway, but it’s not the kind of smile people mean. Mine tastes like iron. My teeth have grown for tearing, sharpened by every scream I’ve swallowed, every word I’ve locked behind my teeth, every “no” that has split me open like a razor blade through the gut.

And I wonder - is this all that I am? Is this all that I have to give? And if it is - can it be enough for you?