Emotionally, I’m about as drained as one can be, without simply keeling over dead. Spending day after day after day just being little more than alive, constantly searching for a solution that cost more than my heart can afford, is like a desiccant for my... me. I have these little fires in me somewhere, but I can never quite track them down. I know they’re burning and sometimes, on good days, I can even see a wisp or two of smoke, but then it’s gone. If I could just find one, I’d stoke the flames as high as I could.

Yet, I know what that means. 

If I cannot handle the flames, then I will be consumed by the conflagration. Some form of me might remain, but it won't be me. It will just be a husk of me, working through the motions of a genuine life. Eventually, I will wear down and scatter. I'll end up becoming the nothing I already believe I am. 

If, on the other hand, I can withstand the fire, watching it lick across my presence, finding the edges, darkening them, making them sharper, I might move something, somewhere. 

Like an ant moving a mountain. 

Before I'm sure I'm not that ant, I might as well try to prove I am, when I reach the other side of whatever awaits me. Maybe then, I'll find some of those fires that I know are smoldering somewhere deep inside.