Do You Remember Before?

Our Unmaking.

As I drift closer, peering into the pitch-cast deep, I remember what brought me here—
the thought, the realization that changed everything.

I no longer mourn the part of me that died.

I remember what it was like before the before—
when the world shifted beneath me,
when it split,
when the maw billowed wide and swallowed me whole.

I was pulled through it,
throat and gullet—
slowly, inevitably.

Compressed.
Crushed.
Unmade.

And then—again.
And again.

I remember the prior iteration—
when something in me still lived that felt as human as them.

There was connection then.
Meaning.

Possibility,
The illusion of truth.

I could look at others, and bloom in recognition,
of humanity, of it’s condition, of it’s love, it’s hate, it’s being.

That part is no longer mine.

I don’t remember when it died.
When it was flayed open, peeled back, and left behind.

That matter is dissolved. It holds no weight now.

Memory remains,
but recognition has withered—
hollowed,
and decayed.

And now you are here with me—
underneath it all.

Do you remember when you arrived?

Do you remember who you were before?

Or has it already begun to blur and slip.

Do you remember the last thing that felt certain?
The last feeling that didn’t tear itself apart before it could become whole?

Can you feel the fracturing? The piercing fragments and missing pieces?

This is our final unmaking—our passage below,
together in the low water,
in the dark, submerged night we now inhabit.

There’s no need to struggle here.

Stay with me.

Together.

Forever.

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© 2025 Joel L. All rights reserved.

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Thanks for reading. - Joel L.

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