There’s a limit to everything, a moment when your mind finally starts to crack under the pressure. And there’s a good reason liminal spaces feel so haunting to spend any actual time in. You’re never supposed to be there for more than a short time. You’re only meant to be a shadow darkening the wall for a moment. The human mind isn’t meant to exist between variables; it craves certainty, familiarity, consistency.
When I was young, I felt something a little bit like this. I remember describing it as being bound and suspended, dangling over an unintelligible abyss with no discernible route of escape. All these years have gone by, but the way this tastes has stayed the same. After a long enough time, you reach a breaking point where cutting the ropes and falling into the unknown (and maybe directly into hell) becomes more tolerable than waiting in suspense.
My purgatory wasn’t inflicted upon me by any outside force. It’s one I built by hand and walked right into, locking the door behind me. As if I missed its sweet bite, as if a little bit of torture was somehow missing from my life. A siren song echoing in the infinite woods, shadows crawling around me in the corner of my eye, and a constant smoldering blaze slipped between the layers of my skin—always, always burning.
I’ve been here for so long, walking in circles looking for an exit, but I’m not sure anymore if I actually want to leave. Fear runs a cold finger down my spine and the shadows pull at my limbs, whispers caressing me in the wind. But the eerie atmosphere has started to feel a little bit like home. I drop to my hands and knees and sink onto the damp earth. The mud clings to my skin, dragging me down, threatening to pull me under, and in that moment I realize just how badly I want to stay.