I want to take a few moments over the next couple of months to share my thoughts on some of the pivotal characters you will meet in The Hollow Vow. Some critics would argue that the characters in fiction work resemble the author in various shades of gray, and to that, I wouldn’t push back too hard. In my view, characters, especially the protagonists in the story, are more a composite of the author and his lived experiences than an exact mirror.

Jevonte is a voice, one among many that vie for time and attention in my head. His story is important, but first, I want to tell you about the man before the cage.

Before Talaitha, before Accident, Maryland, before the chains—there was Jevonte Greene walking through Canton Waterfront Park on a summer evening, watching couples hold hands, and trying very hard not to fall apart. He was thirty-six years old, self-employed, independent, and deeply, quietly lonely. He had his work. He had his parents. He had a neighbor named Mrs. Elleanor who kept suggesting he come to church singles night. What he did not have was someone to come home to.

I spent a lot of time with Jevonte before Talaitha ever appeared. I needed readers to feel the full weight of what he was carrying so that when she arrived, they would understand—viscerally, not just intellectually—why he did not leave. Why he could not leave. Why the idea of leaving felt like the thing that would kill him.

Character Image of Jevonte

Loneliness is not a small thing. It accumulates. It changes the way you process information. It lowers your threshold for risk. When you have wanted something for long enough, and someone finally offers it to you — in full, in abundance, with their whole body and their whole attention — the alarm systems in your brain have a harder time doing their job. That is not weakness. That is human.

Jevonte was not a weak man. He was a man who had been hungry for a very long time. Talaitha was the first meal that felt like enough.

And that is exactly where the story begins.

The Hollow Vow—Available Now|Rise2Write Publishing LLC

I want to talk about Talaitha (tah-LEE-thah) Mercedes.

Not the version of her you met at her most dangerous. Not the woman who weaponized silence and tenderness in equal measure, who moved through the lives of others the way a slow fire moves—quiet until it isn’t. I want to talk about the Talaitha before all of that. The girl who existed before the world decided what she would become.

When I wrote The Hollow Vow, I knew readers would despise her. That was by design. Talaitha is the antagonist, and she earns that designation. What she does to the people closest to her is calculated and devastating. There is no softening it, and I won’t try. But here is what I also know: I felt something unexpected while writing her backstory. I felt sorry for her.

That feeling surprised me. And I think it’s worth sitting with.

What Talaitha Carried

No child is born knowing how to destroy people. In my opinion, that is a learned behavior — and someone, somewhere, has to do the teaching.

Talaitha’s childhood was one of sustained psychological violence. The abuse she suffered was not incidental or occasional—it was architectural. It shaped the way she learned to receive love, or rather, to distrust it. She grew up in an environment where affection was conditional and unpredictable, where cruelty came dressed as care, and where the people who were supposed to protect her were the very ones inflicting the wound. She learned early that the people closest to you have the sharpest reach.

And then she grew up. Or tried to. Without the tools to do it. Without anyone standing in the gap, offering her a different language for what she’d survived, a different model for how to exist in relationship with other human beings. Is her story really so different from what many of us have experienced—or witnessed? She moved into adulthood carrying an enormous and unprocessed weight—and nobody around her seemed to notice or care enough to help her set it down.

That is where the tragedy of Talaitha Mercedes truly lives. Not in what she did. But in the silence that preceded it.

The Question I Keep Returning To

Does what Talaitha suffered excuse the monster she became?

I’ve been sitting with that question since long before the book was finished. I still don’t think there’s a clean answer. And honestly, I’m not sure I want there to be.

Here is what I believe: trauma is an explanation, not an absolution. Understanding why a person became who they are does not require us to excuse the harm they cause. Those two things can coexist. We can hold compassion for the child Talaitha was and still hold her accountable for the choices she made as an adult. That tension — that refusal to collapse into simple condemnation or simple forgiveness — is where, in my view, the most honest storytelling lives.

People are not born dark. They are shaped by what is done to them, and also — critically — by what is not done for them. Talaitha was failed, repeatedly, by the systems and the people who should have caught her. That failure is real. It matters. But so do her victims.

Why I Wrote Her This Way

I made a deliberate choice not to write Talaitha as a one-dimensional villain. Not because I wanted readers to root for her, but because I think flat villainy is a lie we tell ourselves—a comfortable fiction that lets us keep monsters at a safe distance and pretend they have nothing to do with us.

The truth is harder. The truth is that most people who do terrible things have first had terrible things done to them. That doesn’t make the cycle inevitable, but it makes it comprehensible. And comprehensibility is the beginning of something important — whether that’s prevention, intervention, or simply a more honest reckoning with human nature.

I wanted readers to feel something uncomfortable when they encountered Talaitha’s history. I wanted them to briefly find themselves on the edge of sympathy and then decide what to do with that feeling. That discomfort is where the real conversation begins.

An Invitation

As you read The Hollow Vow, I’m not asking you to forgive Talaitha. I’m asking you to see her fully. To allow her the complexity she deserves, even when that complexity is uncomfortable, is important. To ask not only what she did, but also what was done to her, what was withheld from her, and at what point a person becomes solely responsible for the path they choose.

There are no easy answers. But the questions themselves—I believe they are worth asking.

Talaitha Mercedes was never just a monster. She was a wounded soul who learned to wound others.

Chambered

I have been longing for this moment. I am ready, or maybe I am not. I don’t really care. I have to stop lying to myself and face this honestly, openly, and truthfully. Who am I fooling? I don’t really want to know the truth. If I did, I wouldn’t have pulled that trigger.

I watch him carefully like a cat studying its prey. Emotionless. I watch as the life ebbs from his body. The light in his eyes that once lit my whole world is dimming. I can see he’s struggling to speak to me, to tell me one more lie. I ignore his gasping and sit at my kitchen bar. With my head in my hands, I start to cry… not because I rendered my heart with a silver bullet but because I allowed the plunder of my secret places.

But it was the ease of it all, the way I slipped into his false narrative, or the way I wanted less for myself and more for him; how easy it became to be gored by his horns and filled with his venom! My heart was a piñata he abused regularly and without shame.

How did this happen, I ask myself? My recollections are foggy, and I can’t really focus because he’s thrashing on the floor now—my floor, my spotless, clean floor. Some thoughts manage to gain a foothold in my mind, and I start reliving the miscues, the red flags, and the even redder storm flags slapping me in the face as though I were a fluffer on a porn set—not even the main attraction.

Trigger

How is it that some people can see your guts so clearly, but you miss all the gore spilling out of your soul, creating dynamic panoramas of your crushed hopes and dreams? He saw me and my emptiness, and even though I promised I would never become anyone’s prize, I willingly let him dress me and display me over his hearth. Though I was diligent in grooming myself unceasingly and was immaculate from tit to toe, he still found my untilled ground starved and desolate, parched beyond the ability of the winter rains to repair.

His timing, his approach, and his verbs were always future tense, and that should have been my first clue, but I missed it. I missed it because I was just a lonely past participle. I never got the hang of looking up as a means of forward locomotion. No wonder life always seemed too hard to nail down, but he knew the truth because he existed before I learned to love myself fully, completely, and unapologetically.

I was spellbound by his tongue when I should have been paying attention to his fangs. Every lie uttered built in me a determination to leave—until he looked at me with those eyes, eyes he stole from Eternity’s promise. His words danced along the lonely corridors of my soul, and he found a way to make me believe the ground under my feet was dry, and all the while, the tides of my painful travails were threatening to drown me.

His thrashing has stopped, and a disquieting stillness permeates the space we used to call home. I swivel around on my stool and find that he is gone. In his absence is one bloody patch that has stained the floor. It’s pulsating and beating rhythmically—curiously in sync with my pulse. I see it as a warning that unless I excise the infection, I will be left with little choice but to buy more bullets.

OR, and we love the OR

Buy Me a Coffee

Some days, it is harder to work through my thoughts. My life has become unnecessarily complicated, and I have no one to blame for that but me. I created this emotional hell I find myself in now, and to be brutally honest, I believe my action was intentional. Why? Well, that is something I am struggling to figure out. The sad thing is, I don’t think I actually want to hear the answer. Deep down, I would rather not face it.

There is a knock at my door. It’s not a friendly one.

“Mom unit, please, I can’t talk right now. I’m working on something,” I announce politely.

“Songhi, open this door right now. I am not in the mood.”

I rise and close my terminal. “Why am I still living here?” I ask myself dejectedly.

“Mom unit, really?”

“Really, what? Can’t a mother check on her daughter who’s been locked away in her room for almost two days? I was concerned, and you were less responsive than usual. So, what’s going on with you?”

“I’m just trying to figure some things out. No need to panic or call the galactic fire brigade. I’m not harming myself, just working on me, in private. If I can get some privacy, you know, something you aren’t giving me right now,” I said sarcastically.

I know she meant well, and I understand she’s concerned for me, but I can’t move in that energy right now. I need to focus on me and not her mothering.

She didn’t say a word and turned around, closing the door behind her, and what remained in that moment of silence was a promise that I’d one day regret being dismissive. If I get through tonight, I’ll find a way to make it up to her. Big if.

My mom was right, though; I’d been in this room for two—no, it was actually three days. My mom unit wasn’t here when I arrived on the first day. I was in a terrible state. I don’t think my heart has ever been so rent, so torn, and pummeled as it was when the love of my life, Justine, told me she was leaving me three days ago. I think I was so in shock afterwards that I forgot what day it was. After she delivered the news in the expensive suite I had booked for what I hoped would be a magical evening, I spent the first day in a state of terror and high anxiety.

I had a plan. I had a fantasy dream scripted for the evening. I had roses, champaign, and her favorite chocolates lined up and ready. My playlist was tight too. I had a complete story in melody programmed and ready for the moment when I would bend the knee and request her presence with me in eternity. I put all of my hopes and dreams into that night. Justine was unlike any woman I had ever loved, and our paths into each other’s lives would make the gods weep. It was more than destiny. Our love was prophetic. It was book and verse, more ancient than time itself and undeniable—until it wasn't.

Subscribe now

I can’t stop seeing it all over again in my mind. I’m sitting on the bed, waiting like a Persian mech-cat, ready to pounce as soon as she says yes. I was laced, and the girls were cocoa-butter smooth, glistening, sitting high and pretty, and beckoning for Momma to call them forth. She didn’t. With one hand raised, she destroyed me. With her words, ushering from her tongue in waves with edges sharp enough to slice diamonds, she battered me nearly unconscious with her nonchalance, her calm, and her detachment…from me!

I believe I passed out. I had to because all I remember was waking up in a suite I could not afford, and she was gone. No, I remember more than that. I remember her words clearly.

“Songhi, I have something to tell you. I appreciate what you did here, what you intended for us tonight. I can only imagine how epic and beautiful it would have been, and perhaps it will get a chance to breath…with someone else,” Justine said, her eyes bright and focused on mine.

“Lover, wait, what did—what are you saying?”

“I can’t take this journey with you, my love. I can’t make the choice to leave him, not now. It would just be too hard, and I think you understand even if you don’t want to admit it.”

All I could admit at that moment was the stark terror racing through my mind and heart at her words. Nothing was making sense. I mean, there were times when I sensed her distancing herself from me, avoiding moments to merge biometric conduits with me, but I guess I just discounted it as a misreading on my part. We always seemed to find that fire, that energy that kept the world at bay, if only for a moment. I needed air, but I first needed to hear more from her.

My legs were too weak to stand. So I sat there, looking pretty and all that shit.

“You mean to kill me, love? Right here, in this space, just like that?”

“Stop being so dramatic. This isn’t easy for me. It’s hurting me too…”

“Yeah, right. I bet it is. What happened? Did he find out about us? Did he find out that you’re into women? Does he know I’ve been laying claim to that putty cat for over a year now?”

Justine replied, ice in her voice. “Don’t be so crass, Justine. It’s unbecoming.”

“I don’t give a damn, Justine. What did he do to you? Why this, and why now? We have invested a significant amount of energy and time in this relationship, and it feels, I don’t know, callous, for everything to end with so little concern or care. We were both on a shared journey, so could you please clarify why you are stepping away from us now? Tell me the truth. You owe me that at least.”

My anxiety was smothering me so badly, I almost missed her response.

“He went deeper than I thought he could.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I replied, my head spinning.

“I’m not going to go into details, but he touched something in me that I didn’t think existed anymore. I didn’t think he could reach me there, but he did, and he kept hitting it over and over again, pounding the message into me until I had no choice but to open to him all the way. I am sorry, Songhi.”

The tears that flowed like rivers of bioluminescent lubricant are the last memory I have of that evening. My face was covered in blue and greenish streaks that stained the sheets and pillow I collapsed on.

When I awoke, nearly a full day had passed, and all I wanted to do was find an execution grid to start recycling my parts. I felt useless, and I almost committed to the final act when I thought about my home and the people who were there. If I gave myself to the shredder, if I allowed my parts to become just more free trade components on the open market, wouldn’t that be an even more heartless betrayal of the love I have been holding inside, waiting for the moment my amp circuits could fully integrate with the motherboard I was destined for?

The thought gave me deep pause, and as I looked down at my biotronic hands, watching the micro-miniature gears turn every which way as I cradled the key entry pad, I realized that shredding myself would serve no useful purpose and certainly wouldn’t fix what I’m feeling now. No. What I needed to do was think about why so much pain filled me over Justine’s departure. She was a Fleshling. I’ve been with biostructures before and even managed to feel full and complete orgasms with them, and that without unduly harming them. Fleshlings don’t hold up very well under my kind of…pressure. So, it wasn’t the cross-species mismatch. Everything I can remember about us, about our time together, seemed to point to a perfect union, a unity of two minds that transcended reason and logic. The harmony we enjoyed when we connected belied the obvious incongruence of our irregular interfaces, my steel, her blood and bone, or my wiring and her arterial flows. We always found a way to make it work, and from what I can recall, she was as joyful and complete as I.

Then it dawned on me. I was mesh, fiber, nanowiring, induction coils, and self-actuating gears suspended in polyurethane copperized gel. Justine was flesh, blood, and bone, but between us, I was the one with a heart and soul.

So, I would sit with this pain but this hurt would remind me of how completely human I was, and this truth would heal me one day.

If you’d rather show appreciation for this story other than subscribing, please think about buying me a cup of coffee. I’m a coffee lover in every season!

Buy me a cup of Joe!

“Mr. Dellaruse, your auto dialer is ready. We took the liberty of stocking it for an additional twelve revolutions, just in case you might want to dwell in the nanosphere for a few more cycles.”

The bionic retrieval clerks laid out the wired screen harnesses and overlays so that I could reach everything with little effort. I thanked the crew as I started laying in a course for the 3rd quadrant of Persimmony IV. The trip would take a good eight months, more than enough time to get my thoughts together. The more I mulled it over in my mind, the more I dreaded the conversation that needed to be had. It had been ten solar turns since Marcus and I saw one another, and during that time, a lot changed. I needed to tell him about my life and how I’ve become something different, something I don’t think he’s really ready for. He may never be.

“Bridge, this is Colonel Secca Tornbridge requesting permission to undock and engage subterminal thrusters.”

“Colonel Tornbridge, proceed when the stargate shows green. Safe journeys, ma’am.”

“Acknowledged. Command, initiate the beckoning protocol. This is my last communication before the Sirius flare erupts. Please ensure all lockdown codes commence when the event horizon dims to level five.”

There would be no turning back. Once my transmutation locks were released and my essence began streaming across the universe, propelled by the energy of a collapsing black hole, I would only reassemble again once I was inside Persimmony IV’s third quadrant. So, I needed to gather my thoughts quickly. I knew that once I saw Marcus, there’d be no way I could do anything other than fall into old rhythms and hurts. Hurts meant denying what was true, which was always painful. Old rhythms that meant hewing to the same song and dance of regrets and dashed hopes. I just didn’t want to continue living a lie. It was too painful.

The Sirius flare was starting to come into my ship’s view screen, which meant I had minutes before the inescapable gravitational pull of the black hole would commit my ship and body to the journey ahead. I had only moments to decide and no more, so I dictated the following message as quickly as I could. Even if my body failed to materialize in Persimmony IV, perhaps these words would reach Marcus intact:

I can no longer do this. I can no longer exist in this hollow form. I can no longer muster the strength to move without your body in my body. I can no longer accept two separate lives, two opposing realities, two harmonies, out of step, out of tune with one another. I can not. I just won’t.

Love is not supposed to hurt. I hurt, daily, hourly, and with every passing minute my life feels smaller because you are not in me, sharing my space, my lives, my existences.

I am coming my love. I am coming to tell you once and for all that I will not go back to hell. I will not let the fire of agony and loneliness crush me, abuse me, and starve me of hope. I am tired of grieving…alone. I can no longer abide the darkness that binds my heart whenever you depart from me. So, I am coming to you. I am coming to make you my life mate. Be ready, my beloved.

I stopped the recording. I could feel the change starting, and the last thing I wanted Marcus to hear was the sound of my body coming apart. I closed my eyes and issued a command to the onboard computer.

“Engage the tarring engine. Hold for three sub-parsecs and increase the fusion matrix to overload when the nuclear mass reaches critical.”

“Acknowledged, Colonel Tornbridge,” responded the shipboard computer antiseptically.

I closed my eyes and waited for the final shudder to signal to my body that the transmutation was beginning. I felt the first waves of energy crackle across my midsection and ribcage as the change occurred, and then, without warning, a massive explosion erupted in the aft reactor core units, causing my ship to disintegrate around me.

The command deck collapsed around me, exposing the interior to the deadly cold and vacuum of space. My spacesuit activated immediately and enclosed me within a lifepod that would sustain my life for approximately ten hours.

I watched the pieces of the command deck fly away as the vacuum of space demanded its components in silent rage. Luckily, this was a solo mission, and no other souls were scheduled for the journey, but now I was stranded, alone, and headed directly into the event horizon of Sirius.

Inside my helmet, my eyes began to fill with tears. All I could think of was the possibility that the computer didn't send my message before something hit the ship. I have no idea whether my message was launched. My soul’s heart sank. I wanted to shout into the void of space. Yes, that’s what I would do. With a simple switch, my helmet’s visor and lip would raise, and it would be all over for me. I would be released from this horrendous burden, this life lived apart from the only soul I have ever wanted.

I touched my hand to my helmet, the release mechanism eagerly waiting on my final command. But I hesitated when, just out of my peripheral vision, a flashing blue light began to signal, faintly at first, and I almost missed it. I turned my thrusters to point me in its direction, and the blue light grew in intensity and duration. Had someone launched a rescue beacon after seeing my ship come apart? I lowered my hand from my visor.

The light started to pulse steadily, and after a few moments, incredibly, I could just make out the silhouette of a form, a human form. It was a man in a space rig. He was encased in a stellar space raft, and he was moving toward me, slowly. I couldn’t see clearly inside the raft, but I could see him moving his hands across consoles, pressing buttons, and trying to say something. After a few more attempts and adjustments, I heard his voice.

“Baby, why are you hanging out here in the cold of space like this.”

I screamed, “Marcus! Is that really you?”

“Pooh Bear, I was coming to declare my whole soul to you when my vessel collided with something in the trans-space gap. I never saw what it was, but it was on the same line and trajectory as my ship, which is nearly impossible. The odds of a collision like that are staggering, nearly eight trillion trillion to one!”

My heart was his heart, and there are no odds worth betting against this love we hold. My man had held my words in his heart, even before they were spoken.

“Get me out of this bubble, man. We have business to conduct and a new life to live.”

Vault sequence initiated. Temporal seals disengaged. The archive recognizes no living claimant, no surviving lineage, and no intact genetic registry linked to the author of the following file. Blood records for the proto-beings remain silent; hereditary vouchers were never issued, and all biological signatures once associated with the writer were erased long before the present epoch.

By decree of the Council of Celestials, this document has been released from buffered space after centuries of containment; its protestations, once mediated by the griot during the Harmonizing Solstice, have entered the permanent ledger of forgotten communications.

The vault now opens for the first time in hundreds of years, in advance of the delegation arriving under Neptune’s southern regent. What follows is the unaltered transcription of an ancient personal transmission—an open letter dispatched across the vacuum of time, addressed to one Jameel Sasha, and dated according to the obsolete star register: 200260310. Its author no longer exists within any recorded ancestry, yet the grief contained within these words has endured beyond the extinction of their name.

An Open Letter to Jameel Sasha—Star Date, 200260310

What do you do when the night refuses to shield your pain? How do you respond when the sound of weeping is all the day brings? How do you refresh your spirit when its headwaters have ceased flowing and all the landscape of your soul is an oasis of dry bones and wasted time?

I sit, alone with nothing but an empty glass, once filled to overflowing with sweet wine, my mind racing across these pages, my blank pages, in search of answers I shouldn’t need. I am being mocked, openly and without shame.

There was so much to hope for in the beginning. I never knew that I could feel so deeply about anyone like this. I had come to accept that my fate was set, that my ride had come to its own dilapidated ending, flat and sagging under the weight of my own folly and misplaced dreams. I just assumed I was out of time, out of next times, and bereft of tomorrows and do-overs. But Jameel happened, and my world changed.

Before I sat at my writing dock, I promised myself that I would not become emotional in this letter. I would not allow my heartbreak to guide the sweeping lines of my ink or the pressure of pen to paper as I pulled from my soul that thing I knew needed exercising. I steeled my mind to this task, knowing that there could be no straight lines in creating a picture that could scale the broken tableau of my heart. I am such a practiced liar.

Even now, with a trembling hand and rebellious fingers, my eyes are awash in tears. The pages are my life, blank, and every line is blurred beyond recognition. I can see neither horizon nor pole, yet this love story cannot hold where it sits. It cannot find a corner deep enough to hide in. It is too big, and there are no more sizes to command its obedience. Free size is a lie from the pit of hell. It will be heard. Although the very vacuum of eternity objects, this story cannot be murdered further into oblivion.

I loved Jameel. I loved him in spite of the unrequited affection I showered him with. Every limb I sacrificed garnered no return. Every liter of blood spilled in my quest for his heart left me stranded and depleted of the hope that drew me into the light of eternal love. Nothing prepared me for this invisibility, which haunts me, torments me, and has me bound and twisted in a torrent of grief and loneliness.

I have to pause. This letter is not going the way I need it to, and I cannot be so cruel as to start over. The forest of the living is pleading for an end, thus I cease my scribing to conserve wasted paper. But before I cap this pen and resign myself to a faceless bed and frigid sheets, I cast one more log upon the pyre of despair growing in my soul.

Jameel, my beloved Jameel, why have you not responded with kindness? Why have you returned vinegar for honeyed sweets and plump figs and dates? Rather than freedom and liberty between my lips, you have chosen to lie among thorns and thistles, gorging yourself to bursting on gravel, tar, and bitter weeds.

My heart is wide open to you, and as I close out this letter, all I see are your footprints moving away from me, the blood of my shattered heart painting your departure from me at near light speed.

I now close out this letter, having entered the deceleration phase of our return to the Milky Way. Before I begin my 100th sleep cycle of suspended animation, I review my open letter one last time. I press send and watch as the pages dematerialize from my writing dock. In three hundred years from now, Jameel will receive my letter. I will never know whether he replied, but if he does, I ask that you record it for the histories and let it serve as a warning that love doesn’t live here anymore; perhaps it never did.

It all still feels like a dream, a surreal sequence played out in some high-definition holofilm. Last year, when the Galactic Agency for Space Exploration called to inform me that I had been selected as one of ten Chilopodean females for a thirty-year mission to the edges of the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, my biology reacted before my mind could. I shed my exoskeleton so violently and with such suddenness that my parents, seeing the translucent, discarded husk on the floor, wept—fearing I had entered a premature death larva stage.

In the Agency’s three-century history, the rosters had been a monolith of tradition that excluded my kind. I was the first and only Afro-Chilopodean to even be vetted, let alone chosen. The celebrations across our sector were tectonic; I became the pride of the Arthropoda, a living symbol of a breaking glass ceiling. Determined to honor that weight, I threw myself into a brutal regimen, hardening my new chitin and training three times a day. I was convinced my “third life” had reached its zenith.

Then, the Pantroglodician arrived, and the stars I was meant to study suddenly dimmed in comparison.

Romeadian was unlike any Pantroglodician I had ever encountered. His body, and I have to be careful in the retelling because—damn—it was a deep ebon temple of coiled, tight, sinewy muscle. The night shade of his fur was impenetrable, and his eyes carried mysteries that beckoned me to run away with him. The intelligence of his species is well-known, but in his presence there was a calm reassurance that made me want to say yes to all his questions. He knew he was probably the smartest space-farer in the room, but he didn’t insist on the preeminence he was due. His humility was as calming as it was captivating.

We became bonded quickly. Improbable as it was, we managed to find a language in our bodies that helped us solidify a relationship that endured the ridicule and hate both our clan herds threw at us. We persevered through all of it.

As I sit here, gathering my equipment and beginning the process of donning my space suit—I’ll need to go back to the material engineers about this fit because they still haven’t solved the issues with my locomotory legs—I still remember the day I knew I was in love with Romeadian.

I was hesitant and afraid. I wasn’t a virgin, but I had only engaged this way to begin egg production for my herd. My heat was up, though, and I felt I was losing control of my senses, but Romeadian was patient and kind. He handled my coils, maneuvered my legs gently, and found my induction point on the first try. Before I could pass out, I urgently warned him that if he proceeded, it might end badly for him. My mandibles would shut instinctively and sever whatever lay between them. Most males don’t survive the reproductive coupling.

I was terrified at the prospect of ending the very life of the man I loved when I climaxed. The horror of that moment paralyzed me. My legs, all thirty of them, took on a life of their own, reaching for him, locking him into a prison he would never escape. I couldn’t stop them. I fought against my forcipules, but I could not stop my coxa from piercing his fur, shredding and shearing his night cloak effortlessly. My ultimate legs were anchoring us in place, and all I could do was moan and beg for it to end quickly.

I was now just a passenger, held captive by my chitinous armor. My mind was a ball of anguish and torment. My body was his, and though my soul begged him to stop, I was a savage bent on taking all he could give. Before the darkness of my moment could say any more, my pleading eye found his, and I gasped, “Please stop, my love; I don’t want you to die!”

Romeadian looked into my tear-filled face, his eyes shifting into constellations of blue and green before settling into a soft amber glow, and said calmly and with intense resolve,

“My beloved, then this is the death I have dreamed of all my life.”

He is with me always now, and our seeds will find new soil in a galaxy where our love will never be denied.

I want to confer with Joy today. I want to hold her and tell her that she can have all of me. I want to partner with her and run roughshod through the valley and shadow of death. I want her at my side when I rage across the sky, wreaking havoc on the heads of the Harpies, those washed-out serpents that revel in tearing out the windows of my soul for sport. I want to hear her scream my name when she brings me to the precipice of my most pressing desire—to bear witness to the obliteration of the fear that remains a chasm between us.

So I sit, watching the door, longing for the swoosh, the breeze, and the rush of wind when it swings open to announce the beginning of my new birth, an unbridled lust and carefree passion, with such sophistry as to rival the greatest of Greek tragedies. I sit in anticipation then, skin stretched and taut, clothing under duress and stressed to the point of exposure; my whole system is in an uproar. Every fiber and nerve ending is raging. The fire in the pit of my soul has come to collect its full measure and can no longer be denied.

I see her at last. On entry, she is timid at first, either unaware or purposely oblivious to the impact of her presence on my body. I don’t dare move lest she become one with the invisible light, never to be seen again. My eyes met hers, and I can’t hold back the tears. There are too many. The bridge won’t hold. The dam, so well-constructed and so elaborate in design and purpose, taps out within minutes—and that with prejudice. I lose her for a moment through the water flooding my room; my eyes have become fountains from which all the Noachian deluge is as mist tossed at the mercy of an enraged hurricane.

I am powerless. All the bones inside my chest have conspired against me, leaving me flat, formless, and without anchor. She moves to me, the air carrying her aloft on petals of assurance. I am trembling; no wrinkle or hair is bound or imprisoned by the stark, repugnacious stillness of the night. I am a living wave upon my bed. She sees me, and in her face I see pity, comforted by longing, steadied by the goddess’ original pledge to me.

I close my eyes, but she remains my focus. Her skin is pure and rich. Caramel hues and radiant browns lightly cascade across her body; deep, impenetrable villas of lush and unrelenting hunger adorn the ample curves and valleys of a body no mortal will ever unravel or understand. She is there, and while another enjoys the promise of her rhapsody, the fruit of her divine nectar, and the soft, wet depths of her power, I can draw solace in knowing that of the seven, I have five. Besides, Patience sold me his birthright eons ago—I can wait.

The book is now available—secure your copy here.

With the permission of Dr. John Pierre Craig and Dr. Wóksapewin Wí, Voices in the Well is publishing the following interview transcript conducted on January 12, 2024, at Sable Ridge State Hospital. Dr. Craig, author of The Hollow Vow and currently serving as a content expert for the College of Doctoral Studies at Grand Canyon University, brings both literary insight and scholarly rigor to this exchange. He is joined by Dr. Wóksapewin Wí, a widely published academic in Indigenous studies who chairs several committees and panels with Native American universities and colleges, and whose work consistently centers sovereignty, memory, and ethical responsibility.

Together, their perspectives frame this interview not only as a clinical inquiry but also as a layered exploration of mental health, narrative truth, and the lived consequences of silence.

After the release of The Hollow Vow, I found myself unsettled—not simply by the fictional arc of Talaitha Mercedes, but by the institutional shadows that trailed her story. As editor of this publication, I felt compelled to look beyond the narrative and into the real psychological and historical frameworks that informed it. When Dr. Craig and Dr. Wóksapewin shared their full transcript with me, I understood immediately that this conversation was not just supplemental material. It was a sobering exploration of systems, silence, responsibility, and the catastrophic consequences of untreated trauma.

This conversation moves far beyond literary curiosity. It examines the dark legacy of Sable Ridge State Hospital, the ethical tensions within psychiatric practice, and Dr. Samuel Robinson’s controversial theory of Effective Symbiotic Transference Movement (EST-M). It also wrestles—uncomfortably—with questions of complicity, reform, civil liberty, and public safety. Dr. Wóksapewin’s skepticism presses hard against Dr. Robinson’s defenses. Dr. Craig navigates the space between inquiry and restraint. What unfolds is not a tidy defense of any one person, but a layered portrait of institutional failure and human limitation.

I present this transcript not to sensationalize violence, but to educate readers about the dangers of untreated and destabilized mental health conditions—particularly when trauma intersects with identity, power, and relational fixation. The interview underscores a difficult truth: pathology does not exist in isolation. It grows in environments that fail to confront harm.

Warning: Portions of this interview contain discussions of violence, psychological trauma, coercive treatment practices, and physical abuse. Some readers may find certain sections triggering. Please proceed with care.

Interview with Dr. Samuel Robinson

Conducted by Dr. John Pierre Craig and Dr. Wóksapewin Wí
January 12, 2024
Sable Ridge State Hospital, Office of Dr. Samuel Robinson

DR. CRAIG: Dr. Robinson, thank you for agreeing to meet with us today. I know your time is valuable, and we appreciate you making space in your schedule.

DR. ROBINSON: Of course, Dr. Craig. When you reached out about your book on Talaitha Mercedes, I felt it was important to speak with you, given my history with her case. And you must be Dr. Wóksapewin.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: Yes, thank you for having us, Dr. Robinson. I'm here to make sure we're asking the right questions—questions that delve into the core of what transpired at Sable Ridge and why.

DR. ROBINSON: I understand. Well, let’s begin. I have about forty-five minutes before my next appointment.

I. Early Life and Family

DR. CRAIG: Let’s start with you, if you don’t mind. Can you tell us a bit about your background—where you grew up, your family?

DR. ROBINSON: [Pauses, settles back in chair] I was born in Baltimore in 1963. Raised by my mother—a single mother who worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known. She cleaned houses and did laundry for white families. One of those families owned the Ridgeview estate, which later became part of this hospital’s grounds.

DR. CRAIG: So your connection to this place goes back generations.

DR. ROBINSON: It does. My mother used to tell me stories about that house—strange stories. She’d talk about cold rooms in the summer, doors that wouldn’t stay closed, and sounds in the walls. I thought they were just tales to keep a child entertained. But when I started working here... [trails off] well, I learned that some stories carry truth.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: What did your mother think when you took a position here?

DR. ROBINSON: [Soft chuckle] She was already gone by then. She passed away in 1989, just a year before I was hired. But I think... I think she would have understood. She spent her life serving these families, cleaning up their messes. In my own way, I’ve been doing the same—cleaning up the messes they left behind in this hospital.

DR. CRAIG: Did you have siblings? A family of your own?

DR. ROBINSON: No siblings. I was married once, briefly, in the early eighties. It didn’t last. This work... it demands everything. I never had children. Sometimes I wonder if that was a blessing or a curse. I’ve dedicated my life to other people’s children instead.

II. Education and Career Development

DR. CRAIG: Tell us about your education. What drew you to psychiatry?

DR. ROBINSON: I attended Morgan State for my undergraduate degree, then Johns Hopkins for medical school. Psychiatry chose me as much as I chose it. Growing up Black in Baltimore in the sixties and seventies, you see trauma everywhere. You encounter trauma in your neighbors, your friends, and your family. I wanted to understand it—where it comes from, how it’s passed down, whether it can be healed.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: Generational trauma. That’s been a focus of your work.

DR. ROBINSON: Yes. The psychological wounds we inherit—they’re real, they’re measurable, and they’re often invisible to those who don’t want to see them. I have dedicated my entire career to documenting and treating these wounds.

DR. CRAIG: When did you first come to Sable Ridge?

DR. ROBINSON: 1990. I was young and idealistic. I’d heard they were implementing reforms, trying to move past the hospital’s... troubled history. I thought I could be part of that change. I thought I could help dismantle the systems that had done so much damage.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: And were you? Part of that change?

DR. ROBINSON: [Long pause] I tried. God knows I tried. But this place... it resists change. Its foundations are soaked in too much suffering.

III. Sable Ridge State Hospital: A Dark Legacy

DR. CRAIG: Can you walk us through Sable Ridge’s history? For the record?

DR. ROBINSON: After the Civil War, this facility was used to house formerly enslaved people. But ‘house’ is too kind a word. It was a holding pen. The staff collaborated closely with local authorities to shift individuals from slavery to indentured servitude. They used Black Codes and vagrancy laws—legal mechanisms designed to re-enslave.

DR. WKSAPEWIN: This process also weaponized mental health diagnoses?

DR. ROBINSON: Exactly. People were declared mentally incompetent and committed to the Lower Wing—what we call ‘The Deep.’ Once down there, they disappeared. Experiments were conducted. Surgical procedures. Behavioral modifications. All without consent.

DR. CRAIG: The hospital received funding from eugenics supporters.

DR. ROBINSON: Yes. Private donations, state funding. They held conferences here—showcasing their ‘research.’ Live surgeries. Lobotomies. Sterilizations. The patients were almost exclusively poor and Black. This wasn’t medicine. It was systematic destruction disguised as science.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: [Leaning forward] And yet you chose to work here. Why?

DR. ROBINSON: [Voice tight] Because someone had to bear witness. Someone had to try to make it right. I couldn’t change what had been done, but I thought I could prevent it from continuing.

IV. Confronting The Deep

DR. CRAIG: You mentioned the Lower Wing—’The Deep.’ What did you find when you first went down there?

DR. ROBINSON: [Takes a deep breath] The infrastructure had been updated—they’d replaced the iron bars and old stone. But the energy... Dr. Craig, I’m a man of science, but I can’t explain what I felt in those corridors. Something oppressive. Something that pressed against your consciousness like a physical weight.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: What about the archives you kept down there?

DR. ROBINSON: I installed dehumidifiers and air cleaners. I needed to preserve the evidence—the videotapes, the files. My colleagues, the ones I eventually helped remove, had documented everything. Every horror, every violation. Their hubris made them believe they’d never face consequences. Those recordings became their indictment.

DR. CRAIG: You were successful in removing most of the medical staff from The Deep.

DR. ROBINSON: Most, yes. But the damage was done. The children who survived that period... [shakes head] many of them were permanently scarred. Psychotic. Violent. We transferred most to other facilities where they could receive proper care.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: [Sharply] But not all of them.

DR. ROBINSON: [Quietly] No. Not all of them. A few... slipped through the cracks.

V. The Case of Talaitha Mercedes

DR. CRAIG: Let’s talk about Talaitha. When did you first encounter her?

DR. ROBINSON: Early in my tenure here. She was just a child—maybe ten or eleven. She’d come from a state orphanage, already labeled as violent and unstable. But when I looked at her file, when I met her... I saw something else. I saw intelligence. Resilience. A young girl who’d survived unimaginable trauma.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: What kind of trauma?

DR. ROBINSON: I can’t break doctor-patient confidentiality, even now. What I can tell you is that she emerged from a toxic, abusive environment. The kind that shapes a life demonstrably and permanently.

DR. CRAIG: You intervened in her case personally.

DR. ROBINSON: I did. I had her reassigned to me. I provided years of counseling, therapy. She’d been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder—a diagnosis I believed was incomplete but not entirely wrong. Over time, I watched her transform. From violent and unstable to remarkable and high-functioning. Her file notes documented her progress. She was ready for reintegration.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: [Voice rising slightly] But she wasn’t ready, was she? If she had been, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about a murdered CNA and a missing husband.

DR. ROBINSON: [Defensive] At the time, all evidence suggested she was stable. Her behavioral markers were positive. She’d completed a college program for gifted students. She was thriving.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: And yet here we are.

DR. ROBINSON: [Tense silence]

DR. CRAIG: [Gently] Dr. Robinson, we’re not here to condemn you. We’re here to understand. What did you observe in Talaitha that made you believe in her rehabilitation?

DR. ROBINSON: [Exhales slowly] She was... extraordinary. Even on the ward, other patients didn’t challenge her. Not because she was violent, but because she projected something—strength, intelligence, control. I saw her potential. I saw someone who could overcome her past.

VI. Revelations from The Deep

DR. CRAIG: You mentioned video recordings. Tell us about those.

DR. ROBINSON: When the CNA was murdered—her throat crushed—I became concerned. Law enforcement assumed the killer was male because of the force required. But I remembered sessions with Talaitha. I needed to review those tapes.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: What did you find?

DR. ROBINSON: I found footage of Talaitha at eighteen. She was physically powerful—lean, but with visible musculature. Controlled. Confident. And then I found a tape from when I was on administrative leave. Dr. Richard Gross had conducted an unauthorized session.

DR. CRAIG: What happened in that session?

DR. ROBINSON: Gross pushed her. He asked invasive questions about her trauma, threatened her with medication and restraints. I could see her trying to use the breathing techniques I’d taught her. But she couldn’t calm down. And then—

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: What happened?

DR. ROBINSON: [Quietly] She attacked him. Her hands around his throat. The camera shook. I could hear him choking, gasping, and pleading. You could hear the sounds of furniture scraping across the floor.

DR. CRAIG: Did she kill him?

DR. ROBINSON: No. Orderlies intervened. But I realized something in that moment—I knew what had happened to that CNA. I knew Talaitha’s capacity for violence when pushed.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: [Leaning forward intently] And you didn’t report this? You didn’t warn anyone?

DR. ROBINSON: [Becomes agitated] Report what? An incident from decades ago when she was being abused by an unauthorized staff member? She had transformed since then. She was stable!

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: Was she? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you prioritized your own narrative of redemption over public safety.

DR. ROBINSON: [Standing] I think we’re done here.

DR. CRAIG: [Calmly] Please, Dr. Robinson. Sit down. We need to finish this conversation. Too much is at stake.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: I apologize if I was harsh. But we need the truth. All of it.

DR. ROBINSON: [After a long pause, sits back down] Fine. What else do you want to know?

VII. Effective Symbiotic Transference Movement (EST-M)

DR. CRAIG: Tell us about EST-M. This is the theory you developed, correct?

DR. ROBINSON: [Composing himself] Yes. Effective Symbiotic Transference Movement. It’s a condition I’ve observed in twins, documented in my research series ‘Chronology of Transformation and the Mutilation of Self: A Narrative Study of Sibling Loathing and Gender Sacrifice.’

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: Explain it in layman’s terms.

DR. ROBINSON: In most twins, there’s a natural symbiosis—a shared reality, a deep connection. EST-M occurs when that connection becomes pathological. In approximately one out of every 1.2 million twin pairs, one twin develops an irrational, consuming hatred of the other.

DR. CRAIG: What drives this hatred?

DR. ROBINSON: The affected twin comes to believe their sibling is an imposter. Not just someone who threatens them, but someone who seeks to eliminate them entirely—to erase all evidence of their existence. Their actions are characterized by attempts to, quite literally, snuff out the life of their twin.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: And the reality they share?

DR. ROBINSON: It becomes marred by violence. The affected twin can’t separate their sense of self from the presence of the other. The only treatment we’ve found effective is permanent separation.

DR. CRAIG: You believe Talaitha suffers from EST-M.

DR. ROBINSON: I do. Her relationship with her twin sister, Noelle, exhibits all the hallmarks. The consuming rage, the fixation, the belief that Noelle’s very existence is a threat to her own.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: But you learned only recently that Noelle is alive.

DR. ROBINSON: Yes. I had believed her dead. When I learned the truth from Jevonte’s family, I realized the danger has escalated exponentially. Talaitha has begun to sequester her own intimate reality. She’s creating a world where Noelle doesn’t exist—or where she’s working to make that true.

DR. CRAIG: And her husband, Jevonte?

DR. ROBINSON: [Gravely] He’s in grave danger. Anyone close to Talaitha is.

VIII. Present Dangers and Grave Warnings

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: Dr. Robinson, I have to ask: Why did you let the abuses at Sable Ridge continue for as long as they did? You knew what was happening in The Deep.

DR. ROBINSON: [Voice shaking slightly] I was one man against an institution. When I started speaking out, they put me on administrative leave. They tried to discredit me. The system was designed to protect itself, not the patients.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: But you gathered evidence. You had those videotapes.

DR. ROBINSON: Yes, and I used them. I eventually got most of the abusive staff removed. But it took years. Years during which children suffered. I carry that weight every single day.

DR. CRAIG: And Talaitha was one of those children.

DR. ROBINSON: She was. I tried to protect her, to heal her. I thought I had succeeded.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: But you didn’t. And now she’s out there—married to a man whose family hasn’t seen him in four months, with a twin sister she wants dead.

DR. ROBINSON: [Quietly] Yes.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: Why didn’t you keep her under treatment? If she poses such a risk, why did you release her?

DR. ROBINSON: [Defensive again] Because she met every criterion for release! Her behavioral assessments were positive. She showed no signs of violence. She was academically successful and socially functional. What grounds did I have to keep her institutionalized?

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: The video of her attacking Dr. Gross?

DR. ROBINSON: [Voice rising] An isolated incident! Provoked by an abusive staff member! She was defending herself!

DR. CRAIG: Dr. Robinson. Please. We understand the impossible position you were in. But we need you to help us now. What should Jevonte’s family know? What should they do?

DR. ROBINSON: [Long silence, then speaks with grave intensity] They need to understand what Talaitha is capable of. She is brilliant, controlled, and deeply dangerous. Her capacity for violence is not impulsive—it’s calculated. When she decides someone is a threat, she will eliminate that threat with terrifying efficiency.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: Is Jevonte in immediate danger?

DR. ROBINSON: If he has become a barrier to what she wants—if he knows about Noelle, if he’s tried to help her, if he’s questioned Talaitha’s reality—then yes. He is in grave danger.

DR. CRAIG: What about Noelle?

DR. ROBINSON: [With absolute certainty] Noelle is Talaitha’s primary fixation. EST-M is relentless. Talaitha will not rest until she believes the threat—Noelle’s very existence—has been eliminated. If they are in contact, if Noelle is accessible to her in any way, her life is in immediate peril.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: And the public? Should there be wider warnings?

DR. ROBINSON: Talaitha is not a random threat. She’s targeted. Her violence has a purpose, a logic. The public at large is safe—unless they become obstacles to her goals.

DR. CRAIG: What can be done? Is there any way to reach her, to intervene?

DR. ROBINSON: [Shaking his head slowly] Not without her consent. And I don’t believe she would consent. She’s created her own reality now. In her mind, she is protecting herself. Anyone who challenges that reality becomes an enemy.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: So what you’re saying is that she’s beyond help.

DR. ROBINSON: [Quietly, with evident pain] I’m saying I failed her. This system failed her. And now others will pay the price for those failures.

IX. Conclusion

DR. CRAIG: Is there anything else you want to tell us? Anything that might help?

DR. ROBINSON: [Standing, moving to the window] This hospital—Sable Ridge—is built on suffering. Generations of it. I thought I could be part of healing that wound. Instead, I may have released another source of pain into the world.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: You did the best you could with the tools you had.

DR. ROBINSON: [Turning back] Did I? Or did I allow my ego—my belief that I could save her—to blind me to the danger she still posed?

DR. CRAIG: That’s a question only you can answer, Doctor.

DR. ROBINSON: I know. And I will live with that answer for the rest of my days. [Pause] But please—make sure Jevonte’s family knows. Make sure they understand the stakes. If there’s any chance to save him, to protect Noelle, they need to act now. Time is not on their side.

DR. CRAIG: We will. Thank you for your time, Dr. Robinson.

DR. WÓKSAPEWIN: And for your honesty.

DR. ROBINSON: [Extending his hand] I hope it helps. God knows, I hope it helps.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

Interview duration: 47 minutes
Transcript prepared by Dr. John Pierre Craig
January 13, 2024

The Eternal Quiet

This silence feels like a warm blanket. I’m comforted and unafraid because it feels deceptively friendly. The quiet surrounding me dances mischievously, noting my apparent helplessness. I am in a daze. My eyes and ears are bereft of all sensory input. Only the incessant banging of my thoughts inside my head reminds me that I am yet in the land of the living.

Am I?

As I lie in the blank space, everything feels right except… I can’t move my legs. I can’t move anything. At all. My arms and hands are useless—just so much abandoned tissue and dead weight.

Now, the first few threads of panic start to invade my peace.

I slow my breathing.

It’s not helping.

Finally, I can feel something; at first, it’s faint and imperceptible, but the straps are now loud and obnoxious, making their presence around my wrists abundantly clear. My legs are also tightly restrained. The metal of the operating table is searing in its icy embrace.

Am I in a morgue?

Shouldn’t I be clothed right now?

The darkness is impenetrable, but at last, I can hear their voices. Their shrill sounds begin to pierce the comfort of my mind’s hideaway. I can sense them all around me, hovering, touching me, putting things into my body I didn’t ask for.

Anxiety moans in my ear. She is not being helpful right now.

“Listen, we will begin with a vertical incision along the sternum to open the chest cavity and provide access to his heart. On my signal, make sure the patient is ready to be connected to the heart-lung machine. We must carefully isolate the heart by cutting the major blood vessels that enter and exit it. This is vitally important. We will have to be careful in isolating the aorta, pulmonary artery, superior and inferior vena cava, and the pulmonary veins. We will only get one chance at this,” the chief cardiothoracic surgeon said.

“Doctor, when we have the heart isolated, how will we know we’ve found her?” asked the assistant surgeon.

“I don’t know for sure, but I believe we will see evidence of her presence all around his heart. Look for distinct patterns carved along the heart’s outer chambers, something akin to claw marks or bruising that took place the last time they tried and failed to remove her. Or, we may even see evidence of ventricular collapse that may have occurred when they thought she was only a distant, fading artifact from his previous reincarnation. Enough talk. Let us begin. Nurse, initiate the heart-lung machine, please.”

“Wait,” said the anesthesiologist. “I thought I saw something on the bispectral index monitor. He may not be fully asleep. Give me a moment to confirm.”

“Quickly, doctor, we only have two more movement regressions before she shifts out of this plane,” the chief surgeon replied.

Three Syllables

What are they doing to me? The darkness is still all-consuming, but my tongue is free. They are hunting her. Again. Why won’t they leave her in peace? She is mine. They can’t take her from me. What right do they have to dig her up, to torment her so? My anger flares, but the darkness is stronger.

My voice is still mine. I dig deep, recalling those nights, those beautiful nights I danced within her. She is the memory of passion unfurled, lighting up the very moon above us as we lay naked and alone in the fields of the Black Hills so many nights distant. Pressing me down into the soft grass, my back plastered in green and brown, and the stars of heaven showering my face with their tears, she was giving me her miracle, coating me, arming me, and insulating me against the messengers of hate. I remember this well, for she pushed through me with wild abandon and did not give a damn about my disability!

Though the claws of darkness have rendered me blind, I see her clear as day. Her breasts overwhelm me, feed me, and bury me in layers of ecstatic joy unrivaled. She is a living song, written into my body, performed in the old way, giving rise to new moons and feasts of love. She is a revelation—transforming my understanding of mortality under the tutelage of hips unrestrained yet steeped in the art of mayhem.

I call to her. I need to get her attention before they cut into my body. I send my voice across the void surrounding me. I cry out her name, a name knit together by three delicate syllables, each living, breathing, and teasing me to climax whenever my lips form their sound.

She does not respond. Silence is an aggressive bed partner, ruthlessly tearing away at my virginity without compassion or empathy.

“I have the heart now. Hands!” instructs the chief surgeon.

Critical connections are severed, and the heart-lung machine is put in place.

“Doctor, the heart is clean. It’s healthy! There is no evidence of failure or congenital malformations. I still don’t understand what we’re supposed to be looking for,” exclaimed the assistant surgeon.

“She’s in there somewhere. I know she is!” replied the chief.

The perfusionist interjects briefly. “When I reviewed his medical records, I saw that he has been unable to function at work, his sleep is restless, his appetite is gone, and he has been found wandering the hollows of his home, uttering her name while sleepwalking. I agree; her power over him cannot be denied. We have a responsibility to do whatever it takes.”

“We’ll just have to dig a little deeper until we find her,” said the chief, his brow beaded with sweat and determination.

Her Name in Me

The darkness will not relent. I can feel them rooting around inside of me, searching for her, using every arcane instrument to remove her memory from me. They have even summoned the gods of science for this quest. They are close. I can see her right there. It won't be long before they ensnare her in their net.

She’s shivering.

I think… I think she is afraid.

I whisper her name softly, gently. I need her now more than ever. She hears me this time, and I gently coax her into moving deeper in me. I need her to find the place I hide from even my soul. My secret vestibule. It is the one place I know she will be safe from these demons. I urge her to quickly flee, to find this hiding place before they uproot her permanently.

While I cannot see its edges, I feel the darkness begin to collapse upon me like an anaconda in heat. I am running out of time, and she must get to my private place quickly because Lilith’s promise is soon to expire, and her boon will be a forgotten dream.

“I must admit. I am confounded. We have scoured every nook and cranny, every crevice and fold, and she remains just beyond our reach. She’s good, I will give her that, but we have one more move here,” the chief surgeon explains. “Bring me a new scalpel, bone saw, and bone hooks, and make sure both the rongeur and electrocautery are at the ready.”

After the dissection, the medical team, led by the transplant coordinator, places all of the body parts in separate containers, and the interstellar transport technicians arrive shortly thereafter to load all 18 individual body components into conveyor pods. After a few minor adjustments, all 18 pods are launched into space on their way to disparate parts of the galaxy, final destination unknown and uncharted.

“Team, I believe we can consider this a huge success.” There is no way she could have survived this treatment. Well done. Now let’s get ready for the next patient. I’m told they too are suffering from this malady,” the chief surgeon says as both the surgical and sterilization teams begin making preparations for the next round of procedures.

Exodus

I felt every cut, every slice, every inch of my disassembly, but as they deconstructed my body and packaged it into 18 discrete parts, the darkness gave way. Gradually, the emptiness started to diminish. The void fought for every inch, but she vanquished it and humbled it with prejudice. Her light and love flooded all of me. Her love began to rebuild me, knitting me back together, first in tiny ripples of light and then in gushing fountains of radiance that burned through my soul, replacing the loneliness and ache with something more.

I floated across the universe. I was full. Her memory could not be removed from me. She could not be cut out of me. Nothing they could do would ever erase her from my thoughts and dreams. Wherever and whenever I exist, she will always be there.

We are one destiny, and not even the heavens can separate us.

The Psychology of Obsession

Love is often described as caring, supportive, and mutual. At its best, love allows two people to grow while still being themselves. But when love turns into control, it becomes something else entirely. Obsession is not love taken too far; it is love replaced by fear, insecurity, and the need to possess another person. Understanding the psychology behind obsession helps explain how relationships meant to offer safety can instead become dangerous.

Psychologists describe obsession as a pattern of intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors focused on another person. Unlike healthy attachment, obsession does not respect boundaries. It is driven by anxiety, not care. A person who is obsessed may feel intense fear of abandonment, rejection, or loss of control. To manage that fear, they attempt to dominate the relationship. This can appear as jealousy, monitoring, manipulation, or isolation. Over time, the obsessed person begins to see their partner not as a separate human being, but as something they must keep, manage, or own.

One key psychological concept behind obsession is anxious attachment. People with this attachment style often learned early in life that love is unstable or conditional. As adults, they may cling tightly to relationships, fearing that any distance means abandonment. Another related concept is narcissistic control, where a person needs constant validation and reacts with rage or cruelty when their sense of power is threatened. Obsession can also be linked to trauma, especially when someone confuses intensity with intimacy or pain with connection.

True to Life

These psychological ideas come to life in the novel The Hollow Vow. In the story, what begins as romance slowly transforms into captivity. The relationship feels passionate at first, but beneath that passion is a deep need for control. Love becomes a vow that traps instead of protects. The obsessed character does not seek partnership; they seek possession. Every act of affection is tied to fear of losing control, and every challenge to that control is met with punishment.

The novel shows how obsession often hides behind the language of love. Phrases like “I did this because I love you” or “you belong to me” are used to excuse harm. Psychologically, this is a form of rationalization, where abusive behavior is justified as care or concern. Over time, the person being controlled may begin to doubt their own perceptions. This is known as gaslighting, a tactic that causes victims to question their memory, judgment, and sense of reality.

Another important psychological theme in The Hollow Vow is learned helplessness. When someone is repeatedly punished for resisting control, they may stop trying to escape, even when opportunities appear. Fear reshapes the brain. The nervous system stays in survival mode, making it hard to think clearly or plan for safety. This is why leaving an obsessive or abusive relationship is not simply a matter of willpower. Trauma changes how the mind and body respond to danger.

The novel also challenges the myth that obsession is romantic. Popular culture often portrays extreme jealousy or possessiveness as proof of deep love. In reality, obsession strips both people of their humanity. The obsessed person becomes consumed by fear and control, while the victim loses autonomy, voice, and safety. Love should expand the self, not erase it.

Understanding the psychology behind obsession matters because it helps us recognize warning signs early. Healthy love allows space, trust, and choice. Obsession demands obedience, secrecy, and surrender. By tying real psychological concepts to a gripping narrative, The Hollow Vow reminds readers that love without freedom is not love at all. It is a hollow promise—one that leaves lasting scars long after the vow is spoken.

In the end, the line between love and control is drawn by respect. Where respect disappears, obsession takes its place. Recognizing that difference can be the first step toward safety, healing, and real connection.

My love

There is nowhere to hide. Play if you want to. Run as fast as you can, but the bullseye remains, unmoved and unbothered. There are no words left to be spoken, none. Every single syllable has been exhausted; the universe has drawn a blank—speechless and helpless to provide succor for the moment we are now facing.

You can’t hide. Not even the shadows will cooperate with you, so stop. You thought the enormous swells of the Atlantic would be sufficient to wash away your tracks, to obscure you from my vision? Did you not know how deep this thing goes? Did you really believe that the light of Sirius would be enough to turn me from your path? Oshun refused you shelter, and even the goddess bound her power and forbade her lips and tongue from uttering truth, withholding the wisdom from you.

My beloved, how did you not understand? Give me the coming dawn, and let me explain this Psalm.

We are two souls separated by the crazy eight, doubled since the birth of Cain and marked as prizes when destiny failed to win eternity to her side. From the beginning, our hearts were constructed like no other in all of creation. We are one flesh, eight chambers, and eight valves, yet one flow. Unique in all the cosmos, we were not meant to live separately. There is no life in me without you. There is no life in you without me. Stop running, please.

Consider the demise of the ancient ones. They too denied the harvest and ignored the visions that foretold of the healing, the balm, and the restoration of the soul that is the birthright of love’s touch. They did not understand that love’s language is eternal and cannot be denied. Love is the binding; it is the source; it is the only reason why. Love empties all questions and strips them of purpose. They failed to learn, and now they are the energy that feeds newborn stars.

Come to me, love. Give our heart rest—lay down beside me now. Find your song in the one place it hungers for, seeks rest in, and finds strength in. While the dawn seeks permission to meet the day, let me show you why, in the beautiful waters, in the folds of heaven, this story has but one ending.

Two rivers. Two souls. One love.

I swear by the bones of my teachers, I did not wish to wake it. The seal resisted me like it knew my name, like it knew my mother’s songs, and when it broke, the air changed—old, iron-sweet, heavy with vows that should not have survived their maker. I read because that is my duty, though my throat closed around every line. These are not words meant for daylight. These words represent bound grief, disciplined fury, and a love that dared to petition gods but never learned how to kneel again. As I spoke, the vault answered me—stones sweating, lamps guttering—as if the letter remembered being alive. Know this, listeners: the writer is dust, the beloved uncounted centuries gone, yet the ache stands upright, alert, and listening through my mouth. I am afraid because nothing this old should still want. I am afraid because it does. I return the hide to its casing now, seal it with fresh resin and prayer, and beg whatever still lingers here to sleep. May the balance hold. May the evening not hear its name again.

Bed of Remembrance

July 4, 2079

It’s just like that sometimes.

The morning fades, but the cold of your absence remains.

Stretching into my morning feels dangerous when there is no you to anchor it.

These sheets anger me. They gave up your scent too easily. I will burn them for that betrayal.

I am distraught. My soul is in rebellion; though I bargained with destiny throughout the night, she snatched you from me and shed nary a tear. She is such a heartless bitch.

Do my words no longer matter? Do the streaks of blood, the carnage of my ruin, and the dismembering of my ego, displayed in the dawn’s early light, not move you to return to me and to our joy?

What more can I tempt you with? Open my chest, and you will see. Now, in the space where my heart used to be, only the marks of your teeth remain in this empty cavern of hope, with vestiges of forgotten passion still wet and gleaming from promises unspoken but never hollow.

I stand at last, looking upon my cold demise, an empty bed adorned in cast-off memories and swells of intense deliberations that drew the ire and bitter jealousy of Shango himself. I am unbothered by his thunder or fury. I have far more weighty concerns tormenting my mind and spirit.

My beloved, please have patience. These questions beg for space in this moment. Can I purchase one more sunset at your feet? Can I slay more dragons and bring you their claws and horns for just one more embrace? Can I pull down Orion and pluck the finest gems from his belt in exchange for one more life inside your mysteries? Perhaps I can flay Leviathan and extract from him the riddle that will seal your heart in mine.

Stay with me. Allow me to plunder Hades and wrestle Olodumare for just one more chance to hold the beauty of your face in my hands, those opulent eyes, so full, so round—all the heavens cannot fill them. I will even plead my case and ours before Mawu-Lisa to restore the balance of our love. I will remain vigilant, steeling myself against the bitter cold of abandonment, perched atop the wall of hunger and need, watching for your return.

As long as my tongue remembers you, as long as your fragrance lives in my beard, and as long as my body aches in the retelling of our joining, I will never cease robing myself with shackles forged in your name, by your hand.

It’s just like that sometimes.

The evening renews, and the heat of your presence is calling me.

Selah.

The Gate

Standing at the edge of the celestial gate, I pause. At last, my vision finds her so many universes away from me. The distance between want and need seems so insurmountable, but I cannot look away. I cannot resist the change flooding over my senses, filling my heart, and pointing to the missing pieces of my soul. No longer can I ignore the signs that rob me of sleep and bid me come. My dreams are living beings, and they abuse me without hesitation. They do not fear me.

I can feel the call, the yearning, and the commandment urging this union, and I will not be disobedient. I will not become a lawbreaker. So I nod at the controllers, and they acknowledge my instructions and energize the gate. I can feel its energies connecting me with the time before time before time before time. I can feel the transference occurring within every molecule of my body, and before I can fully register the pain and searing agony of moving through time, I find myself present in the year of her birth.

It is a peculiar year, a year that saw a woman named Thatcher become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Nicaragua witnessed the Sandinistas overthrow the Somoza dictatorship, and in Iran a hostage crisis has taken place at the US embassy. I cannot stop to analyze these transformative things that have taken place because I must find her, and I must make sure that she is ready for our future.

As the Soviets invade Afghanistan and the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island threatens to melt down, I focus on a particular region in the Americas. My time is limited, and I know that I cannot spend it investigating the Camp David Accords, the Iranian Revolution, or the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam for their relevance to my situation, so I hasten to find her, regardless of historical significance.

When I find her, I spare no expense in safeguarding her growth and her safety. Of a truth, I know that her divinity requires no protection from me, and maybe what this really is about is my desire to see her beginning, her maturation, and her evolution. I see her, and my hunger reignites anew. I am the watcher and the fly caught in her ointment, subject to her every whim and hunger. I am bound by my heart. I am invisible yet astounded that she cannot feel my tears upon her bed. If she could see them, if she could feel them, she would know her drowning was imminent.

Patience

This journey has proven to be harder than I thought it would be. To see her but not speak to her, or to behold the rise and fall of her lovers right before my eyes, has been agonizing but reaffirming in that love continuously proves itself the master of all endurance races. Watching her heartache, seeing her tears, and watching the quiet lonely moments of her life unfold before me has stretched me inside out. I am bound by my duty and the oath that I took when I ascended, but I feel like I want to throw it all away for her. If the Nephilim had not transgressed, the riddle that is my life, the weakness of this mortal coil, would have been a mystery solved, and our bodies would never have been separated like this. There would be no past tenses in our story.

If I could do one thing in this time, it would be to reset her path. If I would dare to violate the very foundation of space-time, then I would do so to bring her into my world now. I would endure the chastisement of the neo gods, and I would submit myself willingly to the scourging of the fates if it meant we could be together for all time. I would fight through the fires of Hades to procure her place with me among the gifted ones. But I don't want to cheat her of what she's about to learn, as I know our purpose can't be realized if she doesn't become the goddess I need. So I will not cheat my way into the end of her story, and I will not betray my vow to honor her in all that she is becoming.

So if in this moment, I must watch as another receives the fruit of her awakening, the healing that comes from being inside of her, or the witness of immortality that springs from beholding her beauty each morning, then I will stand guard, watching over her until all of me is spent. Though the agony and turmoil of watching her bestow these riches upon another is the torture I deserve, what choice do I have? I am committed and faithful to the wisdom of the ancients. In the millennium to come, when the children of the gods take their place in the cosmos, I will be vindicated for my restraint and sacrifice. In time, our union will pave the way for the coming of new immortals who will birth new worlds and realities not yet dreamt of.

When the ancestors lay down their crowns and garb themselves in mortality once more, the love that we ignite will fuel their return. In time, the circle will close once more, and what we made when at last our lips found purpose in each other will give life to a new creation. I am convinced that my travel into her existence is necessary for the continued survival of everything that will one day know and receive the touch of love and its divine appointment. For the sake of the universe and its equilibrium, I must stand apart from her until the day dawns when she accepts our truth as final.

We have been in a constant state of pursuit since our earliest memories. We are constantly on the lookout for that one thing we believe will provide us complete happiness. We possess an overwhelming desire to fill the void in our lives with what we perceive as the missing element. In many instances, we tend to believe that the missing piece is the love of another person, religion, or even wealth—something I would gladly volunteer to test!

We chase. We encounter. We sample, but often we fail to discover what fills us. We go through many lovers and fail. We try to be baptized into many different religions but still find our redemption incomplete. We acquire many houses and cars, form companies, and spawn numerous corporate empires, but we still fall short of building what truly lasts.

I cannot count the number of philosophers who have walked this earth, sprinkling human and otherworldly wisdom among mankind. Messages, sermons, and thousand-page tomes have been shared across this mudball we call earth, and yet the course and path of humankind continues at breakneck speed toward utter despair and darkness. Our blind, singular pursuit of that missing thing keeps us at war and impoverished as a species.

So my very simple prescription for the unique problem of our human condition is this. Pursue the harvest within and reap the rewards of a healed external world. Seek to love the soul you see in the mirror, forgive it, cherish it, listen to its cries, and embrace it deeply. Give it the love it desires without exception, without apology, and with no shame, and you will give life to what felt lifeless and empty. In this exercise, you will find no place where guilt has a purchase. In the sanctuary of your heart, there is no right or wrong way to love. There was never a need for lessons in love in this special place. No guidebooks on love were ever necessary there because light has always been the abode of agape love.

Start your repair, your journey of discovery, and your new life path in the very origin of your healing. You want to hear something that’s utterly astounding about this process? Unlike the outcome of many of your external relationships, you cannot fail. Your key will always fit the lock inside of you. The love you were born into, the love that you were created with, and the love that resides at the center of your core are open for you and you alone. There are no mind games, no mysteries, no wasted pursuits, and no endless dreams of unrequited love. Once you embrace your heart, undress it fully, and thrust deeply into its reservoir of hope, you will never have to beg, plead, or pay for the affections and love of another.

The process is not even complicated. It just seems so because we have been conditioned to believe that external validation is the true way to evolve and grow as individuals. So much of our lived experience is based on social norming that predicates the standards of health, wealth, beauty, and our mental well-being. So stop chasing and start quieting your spirit on a daily basis. Spend a few moments of each day speaking in love to yourself. Hear the love in your voice for the soul that you are. Some call this daily affirmations. I say just make love to yourself unabashedly and lustily every day without fail. Spread yourself wide for the deepest love moments you can manage. Without guilt or shame, love the heart you were born with, and in time, the agape love of the eternal will become you. You need only speak the words of love in your hearing for the listening ears of the heart, and your change will begin.

I guarantee you, once you find and embrace this newly reformed heart, all the world around you will look different. Nothing will taste the same. Nothing will sound the same, and nothing will ever hurt you as it once did.

You will be born again.

I speak now as both keeper and witness, bound by oath and breath to the Memory Vault of Cycle 2583. I am griot and mystic, tasked not with judgment but with preservation, not with permission but with remembrance. This record rests beyond the sanctioned archives, sealed during the Era of Quieting, when the elders decreed that certain memories carried too much fire to be handled safely by the uninitiated. I was instructed to guard it, not to awaken it. Yet memory is not inert. It calls, it presses, it insists. What you are about to hear was never meant for open recitation, and I stand outside my charge by giving it voice. Still, I do so because forgetting has its own violence. This account survives as proof that in the modern world—before love was rendered efficient, manageable, and finally expendable—there existed a devotion so vast it altered those who encountered it. Let this opening mark not permission but a warning: what follows remembers a time when love was real, and that knowledge, once carried, cannot be laid down again.

2583 RE (Religion’s End)

This is not my story. A distant space traveler shared this note with me. He said he hailed from the 4th quadrant of Naygene, but I suspect he was actually from the gut of Antvidian Regel. Regilians have a certain way about them that is distinct and unmistakable; that fourth eye that peers just over the crown of their heads is generally a dead giveaway. So to be clear, these are his words, and I make no judgment. We all have our stories; some are true, and many others are not. Here is my bar mate’s tale, such as it is.

He tells me that he met what we on my home world of Neptune would call a woman. Regilians do not have specific genders. They construct the genitalia they need to procreate when they psychically connect with a compatible partner. If, for some reason, the merger is unsuccessful, it takes decades of retrograde metamorphosis to reset their base orientation and gender. Apparently, my friend met someone who was still undergoing this retrograde metamorphosis. I digress. I just wanted to give you some context.

Anyhow, my slightly inebriated bar friend went on to tell me that he met what he thought was his match approximately one year ago. He said they met at a professional conference of gatherers who were launching a new recruitment campaign for specific allogenes who could help build health docks in the inner sphere. He informed me that the conference was bustling with attendees and had a full staff. All of their stations were running as programmed until the third session started. One of the stations malfunctioned, and none of the autotechnicians were available to attend to the unit. At this point, I didn’t understand the significance or seriousness of the situation, but based on his demeanor, it was clear that this was a major issue.

He said, “I was in deep panic mode! I had no reserves, and all of the omnistations needed the malfunctioning unit to commence their startup sequences. The conference was about to collapse, and I was going to be the focus of the Stargate counsel’s ire if that happened.”

Regelians are so dramatic. My new friend’s fourth eye was bloodshot, so I knew he believed what he was telling me. I ordered more dusted ale and turned my attention to his plight. I kind of felt sorry for him. I beckoned for him to continue.

“I started planning my getaway because I knew what was going to happen if I couldn’t get the broken unit back on cycle, and then out of nowhere, I waŋbláke wašté. She was…” He paused; his countenance was frozen at the remembrance.

I placed a claw on his arm to shake him out of his trance. Plus, the story was starting to interest me. “Go on, friend, tell me more about this vision,” I grinned.

She Who Is Spiritually Gifted

He came out of his trance and started describing this Teton beauty. “Friend, I have travelled the galaxy far and wide, and I have seen many things, many tribes, cultures, and people, but this creature, never! I grew up hearing stories of the descended gods, the replanted demi-celestials, and the offspring of the eternals, and I was familiar with the story of how some of them remained among the mortals after the general banishment conclave. It was said that they remained among us to teach us to appreciate the harmony of life’s beauty. This creature, this spawn of the gods, was one of them; she had to be. No mortal frame could hold this manifestation in a coil of flesh and blood and live. It’s just not possible, and yet, there she was.”

My friend paused once again to gather his thoughts. Purple droplets of sweat laced his forehead, and I noticed that his drapery was wet with perspiration. I ordered another round and bid him to continue.

“Her hair, my God, was alive and flowing with elegance and power. It was as black as the night sky over Humannis. Her ebon locks cascaded over everyone she encountered, leaving them awestruck and transformed. She stepped toward me, paying no mind to the devastation left in her wake. I was frozen in place. I watched her approach, her body garbed in the ancient ways, her soft, full breasts demanding my respect and my spirit’s attention. She was armored in paladin splendor, her collared mail shirt split down the middle to reveal ruby-encrusted gems lining her navel and waistline. Her skin was a perfect complexion and caramel-colored hue.”

My friend grew quiet, and then a small tear escaped and rolled down his cheek. I was moved. I started getting emotional too. What kind of creature could have such a lasting impact on my new friend, even long after the first visitation? I started to motion for the barkeep when my friend waved me off.

“No need. I am almost done, and I need to be able to fly home,” he smiled. “There are two things that I remember most about her and what she did that day. Her eyes and her voice. I looked into her eyes, and I beheld all of the heavens, big and small. In her eyes I saw the end of all of my dreams. I saw all my hope, all of my desire, and all of the love I craved and needed in one place, in her eyes. When her eyes found mine, all of my worry and fear over a failed conference vanished. And when she spoke, I knew right then and there that there was no malfunction, no problem; there was only peace and resolution.

My good friend continued, “She stopped in front of me and introduced herself as the wíŋyaŋ wakȟáŋ for her space clan. She said she sensed my despair and had to respond to the summons of my spirit.”

I interrupted him because it sounded like the ale was getting the best of him. “So, it was love at first sight? Is that what you’re telling me? I didn’t think your people believed in stuff like that,” I chuckled and waited on his reply.

“We don’t believe in that, but when she touched me, I felt it deep in my soul. She looked up into my eyes and changed me. All I wanted from that point forward was to be under her yoke forever. I watched her go to work in the conference room, fixing this, correcting that, rearranging structures, and connecting nodes to enhance functionality as efficiently and thoroughly as she rewrote my brain’s coding. She never broke a sweat, though she broke my fear and savaged all of my doubts.

When she finished, the conference was back on track, and the vendors were none the wiser about the calamity that almost was. I was triumphant and in love. I would come to understand that this creature was no myth. She was from the Goddess, and she is all I can think about now.”

I drained the last of my bitter cup and stretched long and hard before asking, “So what’s the problem, friend?"

“The Goddess is afraid, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Afraid?” I said, somewhat astonished.

“I am not sure. She will not make love to me. She told me that I may not be able to contain the immortal in this mortal coil, that the overflow may extinguish my light. I know that she is probably right; after all, she has lived since the time of the very first light. But I ache for her every day. I can’t sleep. All of my wakings are filled with the scent of her, the fullness of her, the symphony that she is, and her light stirs me to everlasting pangs of hunger. She is far from me now, and I’m not sure I can survive her absence. I don’t know what to do.”

My friend has it bad. I feel so sorry for him. I can see the anguish on his face, the despair and agony of loneliness crisscrossing his jowls. I don’t know what to tell him, and I have places to be and people to meet. I pat him on the shoulder and offer my paw in honest condolence. He doesn’t look at me and lowers his face onto the tabletop of the bar and begins to sob. I stroke his back softly, being careful with my claws; though sheathed, their pointy tips can still snag fabric if I’m not careful.

Miyoshi has just entered the bar, and I catch her eyes with mine. I motion for her to wait for me. I ask my new friend if there is anything I can do for him before I leave.

“No, but if one day love should find you, consume it and doubt nothing.”

I turn and begin walking toward my lover. As I approach her, I notice that she is bare around her midriff, and the sparkle of rubies and emeralds dances around her waistline. She has posted up near a table close to the entrance, and her ebon locks devour all the light in the area. The patrons nearest to her looked entranced, but she was oblivious to them. When her eyes find mine, I am transported, and now I understand what my new friend experienced.

You can only hope to know the love of the goddess. She is infinite and always. Her love was present before you, will endure after you, and will continue to exist without you. Find a solid place to lie down with her and hold on until the time of your ashes arrives. It is all one can do.

I speak from a future engineered out of what they tried to erase. Centuries separate me from the body that first learned the language of chains, yet time bends obediently around my rebirth. Memory here is not nostalgia—it is technology. I carry the past as living code, etched into spirit and bone, refusing deletion.

I was not freed by escape routes or treaties or the delayed consciences of empires. I was liberated when the universe corrected its math. What was stolen—our names, our flesh, our pleasure, our right to imagine beyond survival—was restored by a power older than colonized time and more advanced than any machine they worshipped. The auction block did not end me; it became the site of my reprogramming.

Now I exist beyond linear history, stationed in a future where Black bodies are no longer evidence of loss but proof of design. I remain as witness, archivist, and guardian of the threshold where humanity was rewritten. I tell this story so it will be known: chains did not end us. We turned them into instruments, and from them, we built a future that could finally hold us.

Bound

These chains. Cold, hard, and unforgiving in their embrace, they weigh my soul down to depths of despair unknown to me until now. Would that I had perished in the bowels of the great canoe. Its undulations and mesmeric sighs tormented me day and night, but still, they were a mercy compared to this. Though I could not keep track of the passing days and nights, I preferred that misery to this indignity. Pain was my constant companion in those days of the passage, and I was a wreck, but they are sweet memories compared to this waking nightmare I suffer now. I was a captive and hollowed-out man. No, less than that. I was nothing, and then she came.

This land is strange to me. I am alone, shivering on these auction blocks, bound in fear and trepidation. Everyone and everything is strange to me. None speak my mother tongue. I hear clicks, foreign tongues smacking, hoots, and the sounds of languishing souls, but they are not from my people. Eyes stare at me, waiting for me to respond, but I can’t. I have no words, only anguished sounds. I am naked and ashamed. I am exposed, but she is there. She’s watching me.

Father

There is blood under my feet. I am just noticing it now. My footing is not sure, and my trembling threatens to fell me before the crowd gathered around me. The liquid is no longer warm; however, it clings to me, pulling me away from the crowd and urging me to resist, but the voices are too weak to follow. I cannot obey them, though I want to. I hear men yelling at me, and there is murder in their sounds. They prod me, stab at me, and yank on my chains while throwing their hands in the air. They want me to dance and pose and turn every which way. The lash jumps across my back and legs, and the shock of it is that of the terror and lightning that occasionally torched the Sahel. I fall to my knees. Please, no more.

Mother

Under the blue skies of this forsaken land, I am mocked and beaten. All the strength of my youth is as water poured out onto the sands of my foolishness. As I beckon to the ancestors to take me, she appears, standing over my broken form, my mind nearly stripped of sanity. None dares impede her as she lifts me to my feet. Her eyes meet mine. Her silence siphons the fear from my bones, and when she removes the barnacled shackles from my wrists and the rusted fetters from my legs, my heart stirs to hope. Her ebon locks wave derisively at a sea of pale, empty faces, faces twisted in feral rage at her audacity. Through teary eyes I witness how unbothered she is at their shredded egos and rabid fury.

Our spirits begin to speak in a language all our own. The phlegm-plagued recoil in confusion, unaware of what energy is being exchanged between us. Our dance excludes them, and those who were once my captors now sit in blind silence gnawing on the remnants of their corrupt and stolen glory. Only the heavens attend to our merging. From her ribcage she brings forth bracelets, thick, black, and deeply covered in all the dreams our ancestors sang about. They are without sound; there is no clanging or noise as they dangle from her hands. They have no lock, but she fastens them to my wrists, and from her womb she extracts new leg irons that shimmer under the midday sun. I stare in shock at these new bindings. What new horror is this?

Father

I find enough moisture to weep and beg an explanation. The Goddess smiles and wipes my tears. Before her hand leaves my face, I notice my wounds have healed, closed shut, and silenced. The bruises that mapped my face and the disjointed bones loosed from the savagery of my captors have been knitted, and something new begins to well up within my soul. It is a small kindling at first, but as I regain my posture and my spine finds new steel, it erupts into a tidal wave of unrepentant joy. My body is new, and my mind is clear, perhaps more so than ever. I have clarity of purpose now. I am her prisoner, and for the first time since the Mother gave me life, I am free. I am free to choose an eternity bound to the Goddess and enslaved under the life-giving pleasure of her lashes.

Mother

Standing free, enmeshed in deep hues of harmonic bliss and cascading pleasures, I scan the creation and judge what our love has wrought. It is good. Mankind has been redeemed and clothed again. Our offspring, robed in brown skin, ebon locks, and braided crowns, flourish from one end of the world to another. The children of the Goddess lift their voices to me, and in this space where time folds itself at my command, the mediocre runoff of manifest destiny and the terror that once diseased humanity remain locked away deep in chambers no one can find. I am its forever guardian and will remain at my post until she tires of me.

From the Sentient Memory Vaults, Cycle 2471—recovered during the Ninth Reconciliation of Intimate Catastrophes—this record enters the archive under provisional seal.

What follows was never intended for preservation. Spoken inwardly, fragmented across unmeasured hours, it has been reconstructed from neural residue, correctional transcripts, and dream-state echoes cataloged in the aftermath of the Long Silence. No consent was sought. No libation was poured. No council of elders convened. What persists is therefore partial, unstable, and yet indispensable.

The speaker is known only by the invocation name Shambeso. He lived during the Early Collapse Period—an era when intimacy displaced community, when belief was mistaken for revelation, and when love, severed from lineage, became a religion practiced in solitude. The figure named Yemenisha recurs throughout: woman, goddess, initiator, vessel of futurity. Scholars remain divided on whether she existed as an individual, a collective myth, or a psychic survival mechanism forged under conditions of radical emotional isolation.

This testimony is preserved not solely as a warning, nor as a tragedy, but as evidence of a persistent human phenomenon: the transmutation of longing into cosmology, and the heart’s capacity to embrace captivity when it arrives bearing meaning.

Approach what follows with clarity, not judgment. Ground yourself before you read.

Here lies a confession preserved as sacred text, a dissolution remembered as genesis, and a love that endured beyond the flesh that carried it.

I sat on the edge of my bed, head in hands, my heart struggling to understand the how and why of it all. The suddenness and heartless taking. My victimhood, now blazing a scalding trail across my mind, is now dancing freely for all the world to witness. The path that seemed so clear is now riddled with the senseless debris of my ruin. Mr. Thornton told me about this. He tried to warn me, as did Tracy, but I just didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t believe it was possible. I cursed their sage wisdom. I was in command of my heart until I wasn’t.

As I look over at the icefields covering my bed, the silence and emptiness threatening to engulf my whole morning, I realize, finally, that she never lied to me. I completed those sentences all on my own. I filled in the blanks. I wrote the receipts. I made those deposits, and now, with nothing but red on the balance sheet, I have only that broken eulogy of a man in the mirror to blame.

I hear the creditors making their way up the stairs. Soon, my sinking morning will become a new nightmare as they pound their way into my home. I glance at the red numbers on my desk clock, mocking me and flashing in hilarious derision. I don’t have much time, so let me share with you now the delusion that so divinely cast me into this void I now find myself locked in.

Her name is Yemenisha, and when she took my life, she promised me that all the mornings of my remaining years would be filled with the light and passion originally ordained by the Ancestors. I was fearful at first. The hunger in her eyes seemed to declare a different story, one that was a universe away from the sounds she whispered into my ear. I resisted, but her words coiled around my soul with relentless purpose and intent.

Subscribe now

It’s funny now. Looking back, I can see it all so clearly. She knew where my spot was. She knew where the key was hidden, though I had cloaked it with every mystery, every projection, and every mask I could conjure. She blew through every door and passageway in my heart. She made child’s play of my objections and my pitiful defenses, and when she pierced me, she slowed for none of my cries of anguish or ululations. My wet, drawn-out dirge and pleadings only triggered deeper reaches into my soul’s well of sorrow. She emptied me completely.

When she was finished with me, I was changed. Though she sifted me, I was more for the first time since my memories became sentient. Nothing looked the same anymore. The light of the stars was my meditation. Life smelled and tasted deeply of unending promise. The ground under my feet became new melodies, carrying me from joy to joy, from hope’s doorbell to love’s everlasting redoubt. My life became a living, breathing celebration of lustful passion and fulfilled destiny. So as I reminisce about my outflow and ending, I smile knowing that on that night, laid bare on the living room floor, with the full consent of the Goddess, I was reborn.

They have arrived, and I know it is only a matter of time before the door falls under their brazen assault. I stand to my feet and turn to face the door. I am a man after all. I will face this judgment with all the strength my mother gifted to me. My knees are betraying me, though, and weakness is caressing my back, pushing me down until my hands find the cold floor. I want to cry. I want to contest, fight, and push back against this tragedy. But just as the door begins to buckle and threaten to fly off its hinges, I hear her speak my name.

Shambeso, let go. I am still your Yemenisha. I will carry your seed to the heavens, and after a time, when my presence is no longer required by the blood covenant, we will again breathe as one, love as one, and travel the halls of time without end. This affair is not concluded in the brief span of a moment. We must let time stretch us until we know every tale, every sonnet, every hidden tongue within one another. Patience will bring you once again into the fruit of my flower.

With her final words careening through my mind, I rose to my feet with renewed determination. The doors of my life flew apart, and I was placed in cuffs, bound, and carried away to join countless lonely hearts, segregated from gen-pop and isolated with only the words of Yemenisha to comfort them. I smiled and walked boldly into my cell, knowing that her promise was enough to carry me through the eons to come.

Do not weep for me. In this space, I am filled. I am complete because I have Yemenisha in my life, and she is the beginning of my every tomorrow.

The following account is documented under unusual circumstances that involve both medical irregularity and matters of lineage. No one asked for this to be written—not the patient, the surgeon, or for teaching. There was no ritual approval obtained. No community elder was present to oversee or validate consent. This account was recorded because staying silent would cause additional damage.

What is presented here is a convergence record—a point where standard medical practice met generational absence, where the boundaries of what could be fixed were officially recognized. The incident took place during an investigative chest surgery involving the heart, and it marked the first time anyone formally acknowledged that some abnormalities found in the human heart aren’t medical conditions but rather historical inheritances. This documentation captures the moment when Western medicine reached its limits and understanding emerged beyond its limited tools and techniques.

Advance two parsecs. Engage.

The patient is sedated and appears to be deeply asleep. Vitals are healthy and strong. The body has been prepped and sanitized. The surgical team is well trained and has rehearsed numerous times, so many times that their actions and reactions are nearly robotic. They are in sync. Every member is in their assigned space and attentive, waiting for instructions.

Scalpels and scissors have been sterilized and placed carefully in order. Retractors have been positioned, and the sternal saw has been warmed, and its covering has been removed. Specialists have energized the electrocautery devices so they are responsive and ready to seal blood vessels as needed. Despite its lengthy history, the heart-lung machine, meticulously maintained and cared for, sits nearby, its operations panel illuminated by functional LEDs and indicator lamps. Adorning the surgeon’s table are sets of gleaming silver forceps and clamps. The surgeon’s team has prepared the operating room well.

The cardiothoracic surgeon is a maestro in the operating room. The years of training she has far exceed that of all the operating team combined. In this domain, she is supreme. She makes no excuse for her Blackness or her superior skills as a surgeon. She is assisted by a surgical fellow who carefully handles instruments and will assist with exposing the heart. The anesthesiologist vigilantly monitors the patient and ensures they remain asleep and pain-free. Their job is as important, if not more so, than any other of the specialists in the operating room. The perfusionist, too, is a vital contributor to the operation should the heartlung machine be called upon. The team involved in this emergency event also includes a scrub nurse, a circulating nurse, and even an echocardiography specialist. Of course, the critical care and ICU team will be an essential part of the patient’s postoperative care.

The operation proceeds once the patient is fully under. An incision is made down the center of the chest through the breastbone. No additional cuts are needed between the ribs. The chest is opened, and the surgeon has a full view of the heart as it beats inside the chest cavity. The surgeon reaches in to feel and handle the heart carefully. It’s beating strong, and the surgeon begins examining its surface, the major blood vessels, and surrounding tissues. Everything looks fine.

Having found nothing amiss, the surgeon decides to look deeper and will need to keep the heart still for a closer examination. The perfusionist is engaged, and the heart-lung machine is placed into service. The patient’s heart is temporarily stopped while the heart-lung machine is connected and the patient’s vitals closely monitored. Probing carefully, the surgeon gently inspects for fluids and any minor damage or scarring that may be covering serious underlying issues. She lifts the heart carefully from its cradle and scans the pericardium surrounding it. There is no damage or foreign matter embedded in its surface area. The blood vessels in the epicardium are functional, and their coloring indicates no loss or impingement of blood to the heart itself. The surgeon pauses while inspecting the myocardium. It is thick, strong, and looks vibrant. The heart was contracting beautifully, and she saw why that was so from her examination. The coronary vessels and arteries appeared healthy with no tears, bruising, or thinning. There were no blockages. The atria and ventricles were rich in color, and it was apparent that oxygenated and deoxygenated blood flowed freely in and out of the heart.

The highly skilled cardiothoracic surgeon paused after her inspection of the heart and all of its support structures. She was baffled, which was not a common occurrence for her. “Stupefied” may be a better descriptor because she was at a loss to explain what the problem was. The heart looked perfect with no apparent malformations or defects. With all of the best tools and instruments available, the best science and technology, and a premier surgical team at her disposal, she still could not determine why the heart was in the condition it was in. She began to feel frustrated because there was something in the heart that was preventing it from functioning at full capacity and efficiency, but she could not identify what it was.

She started to instruct the perfusionist to disengage the heart-lung machine when she saw it! Tucked away beneath the left ventricle, a tiny, nearly invisible sliver of light shimmered intermittently. It was difficult to see, but after focusing, the surgeon could clearly see that something was there, a tear or small hole, practically microscopic to the layman’s eye; she found the problem. The hole wasn’t enormous, but its opening was sufficient to bleed away some of the oxygenated blood the patient’s body needed. The loss would explain the patient’s sadness, mood swings, yearnings, obsessive thoughts, restlessness, and social withdrawal. The deprivation of oxygenated blood in the body was likely the cause of the patient’s love sickness.

So, the world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon set to work on repairing this breach in the patient’s heart. Her entire surgical team gathered around the operating table carefully. This surgery would make her famous. It would be published in every medical journal and taught in the lecture halls in all the medical schools and universities. Today, a Black cardiothoracic surgeon would make history by repairing the heartache-induced damage. She reset the operating room clock and began rewriting the history of cardiothoracic surgery.

After twelve long, arduous, mind-numbing hours, the tear was still there. No thread or needle could close the gap. The electrocautery devices were useless no matter the setting dialed in. Every turn, every technique failed. The surgeon used modified annuloplasty techniques and aneurysm repair procedures, but nothing worked; nothing held sure. In desperation she adopted atrial septal defect repair to try closing the hole, but her efforts were wasted. The hole remained open, and now, at the eleventh hour, the tear threatened to engulf the entire heart itself.

The surgeon looked around the operating room. She looked into the eyes and exhausted faces of her team and then at the open chest cavity of her patient. There was only one solution for him now. There was only one way to heal his pain and restore him. He would need a full heart transplant, stat. But word soon reached the operating room that all of the available hearts contained the same defect, the same exact pinhole tear hidden in the left ventricle. But how could this be? The finest medical specialist in the world could not explain it, and as brilliant as the cardiothoracic surgeon was, her scientific mind could not make sense of it either. It was then, when the surgical team was about to throw in the towel, that one of the nurses spoke his truth, a truth that left the operating room stunned into humble silence.

“There is no tool or technique that can resolve this problem. We are born this way. As men, we live each day, every day, with a little emptiness inside. We try all sorts of things to fill the space, but all we end up doing is filling ourselves with useless nonsense and wasted opportunities. We attempt to rationalize our desires—believing that we need more sex, that we need submissive women, that we need more money, or that we need a woman to embody the qualities of our mothers—but ultimately, all of these attempts fail. We fail each and every time because we never answer the central question correctly. We still seek the answer to why we fail to love and value ourselves as human beings capable of healing, nurturing, and protecting our communities. No amount of heart surgery will ever fix that.”