Every day I wake up and I stare into the chasm in the back of my home.

I cannot recall when it appeared. One day it was just there. It broke through my floorboards. A crack in the earth. Stones jutting as teeth from pressed up mounds of soil. Lips made of grass. Water drips from the tips of their blades. The sound is maddening. The scent is foul—stale sweat, morning breath, faded heat.

I do not know how deep that chasm is. I do not intend to ever find out.

I hate the chasm.

And every day, I wake up, and I stare into it.

Why is there so much hate inside of me?

I hate the hate in me. I just want to be a stupid gay animal full of love who is soft and gentle and kind—instead of this miserable, spiteful, hate-filled wreck.

I don’t know all the reasons I hate this way. I know some of them, but I don’t know them all.
I can remember a time when I didn’t hate like this.

I wasn’t born with this hate.

and I’m angry that I feel so angry.

I wasn’t born with this hate, but I will die with it.

And there, from the back of my room, I can almost swear the chasm is laughing at me.

This world is gorgeous. This world is beautiful. This world is a gift.

Sometimes I wish the sun would be brought down from the heavens and burn us all into less than nothing. Sometimes I wish Nightmare Moon had won and I had died in that endless night. That I had died with the one I love instead of continuing to walk this horrible, gorgeous, beautiful world. To give away this gift that has gone and taken from me.

I want the windigo's gales. I want to be locked in Tartarus. I want the life choked out of the land. I want to be torn apart by the Everfree. I want to be turned to stone by a cockatrice. I want gryphons to gorge on my entrails.

I want the world to be as ugly as I feel.

As ugly as the chasm.

I threw that picture into the chasm the night she was gone.

I am not

at it

I cover my face with my hooves. I rarely cry. Tears don’t come to me like they used to. I will grit my teeth. I will make hissing noises of frustration and rage. I will gnaw at the dirty insides of my hooves. My eyes may grow wet, and dampen the shaggy fur around my fetlocks. I will find my breath heavy, and I will find my chest heaving

It all feels so hollow and empty.

And with my bloodshot eyes, I stare into the chasm.

That night I stared deep into the chasm.

The chasm does not grow. The chasm does not shrink. It does not move. Nothing ever emerges from it except stagnant stenches. Nothing ever enters except droplets of water. and the picture of h

Yet I cannot shake the feeling that it is alive.

She wouldn’t want me like this. She wouldn’t want me this mess. She would have wanted me to be able to laugh and touch and kiss and hug and f—

Feel. She would have wanted me to be able to feel anything from anyone other than this horrible, dark, yawning, gaping—

I rolled myself from bed. Steadied myself on all four hooves. I trotted slowly to the chasm. I laid myself beside it. I traced my hoof along its grassy edges, the cold dampness seeping into my marrow. I felt a stone, ran my hoof across its round and rough surface. Sometimes I need to feel things to make sure they’re still there.

I pressed my hooves against the little notches of my ribcage. I made a noise, a strangled pathetic tiny whimper.

I rolled over the edge of the chasm. I hit the ground almost immediately. It was muddy. The smell of stale sweat, the stench of morning breath, the burning and skull-splitting scent of her heat fading from her body—

I slammed my hooves into the mud that formed the floor. I twisted my back, curled like a foal inward upon myself, fetal and crying.

I felt something beneath me. Wrenching it forth, I felt the cool glass pane and the thin brass frame. I could not make out the photo in the darkness.

“Everything reminds me of you,” I whispered through grit teeth.

I brought the picture to my muzzle, kissed the glass—and then brought it down with all my might against my snout.

The glass shattered. I heard the cartilage crunch. Warm blood began to trickle into my fur. Then leak into my mouth. Metallic and warm. The slow sharp sting of sliced skin set in.

And my chasm closed above me.