The weight of isolation doesn’t settle; it suffocates. It winds itself around my ribs, an ever-tightening corset of emptiness, cinching in every ounce of breath until even my most iridescent thoughts fade to dust. In the monochrome landscape of Pocatello, I am a rainbow trapped in grayscale—an opulent, glittering thing shoved into the forgotten corner of a dimly lit thrift store, waiting for hands that never come. I claw at the walls of this solitude, desperate to unfurl my feathers again. To be seen. To be wanted. To be. But let’s be honest—this isn’t just loneliness. This isn’t some poetic melancholy I can wrap in velvet and sell as a tragic masterpiece. This is annihilation . This is waking up every day as a ghost of myself, haunted by the echoes of a life I no longer recognize, asking over and over: Was I ever real to begin with? THE THEATER OF EMPTINESS Every day feels like a performance in an abandoned theater. I step onto the stage, adorned in my most dazzling,...