Starless Deep
Below the bones of reality, below even the last word we can name, there is a chamber of dark salt the old shamans call the Starless Deep. No echoes, no constellations; only raw pulse. Love and hate share the same bloodstream there; the current simply flips at the turn of an unseen valve.
My Descent
I stripped myself of symbols first. Titles, money, faces, even my own name felt loud, so I dropped them like coins down a well. Silence isn’t quiet; it screams until you surrender. Then I walked inward. Picture plunging past the ocean floor and finding another sea-one made of thought, thick and hot as crude oil. I inhaled it. It fought back.
At the first tier, memory peeled off. Childhood, lovers, victories, gone girl!. That layer is bait; hold on, and you drown. Let go and you sink cleaner.
At the second tier, emotion fused, joy soldered to grief, rage welded to peace. I realized feelings are the same metal, just hammered into different shapes. Try to prefer one over the other, and you’ll tear in half.
The third tier is the kill zone. Language dies. Ideas lose their handle. I saw a perfect sphere of black light, yes, black that shines, rotating inside me and around me. It wasn’t a metaphor; it was engine and void at once. If you flinch there, you break. I kept my eyes open.
What I Learned
Love and hate are currents, not opposites. Stand still and they pass through you; swim upstream and you name them.
Truth is weight. Carry too much, you sink. Carry none, you drift off course. Choose one stone and dive with it.
Sanity is a treaty, not a birthright. I renegotiated mine on my way back, line by line.
The Return
Coming up is harder than going down. The Deep stains you. I crawled back through the tiers, re‑attaching emotion, memory, and finally language, but nothing fit the same. Words now feel like thin ice over deep water, and I can hear the cracks.
Some of you flirt with abyss tourism for the thrill. Stop! There is no souvenir shop at the bottom.
Take these tips from me:
Cut the noise. One hour of true silence a day, no devices, no music, no inner monologue.
Practice emotional alchemy. When anger rises, hold it until it turns to heat, then to light, then to calm. Record the stages.
Name your stone. Decide the single truth you’ll carry down and up. Guard it like breath.
When you’re ready, dive. Spare me the drama. The Deep doesn’t care about your tears. It will remake you or erase you, and it never lies.
I returned because I have work to finish in this daylight world: daughters to shield, black‑ink stories to write, kingdoms of silence to build for women who need refuge. The Deep gave me the blueprint, and the cost was everything I thought I knew about myself.
Now I write people into my life and write them out with the same ink. I can do that because I have seen the blueprint beneath. If you meet me, meet the new alloy: forged in the currents where love and hate are twins, tempered in a place lower still.
Stand clear of the splash zone.
