Some sins… no, some temptations, coil around you like immense black serpents, silent and patient, striking again whenever you think you've escaped, slipping from beneath your skin without warning. Let me give you an example, so you may understand how merciless the world can be:
When you taste sleep, it is so intoxicating that you wish to drown in it, deeper and deeper, as if reality itself cannot find you.
When you touch the pleasures of the flesh, desire ignites like a hidden fire, and every attempt to flee only draws you closer into its consuming blaze.
When you taste food, morsel by morsel, it devours you, and you thrash in an endless cycle of hunger and indulgence.
When you listen to music, you lose yourself for hours in its resonance, every note, every vibration binding you tighter to its spell.
And when grief entwines with love, you cling to it for years; a vice that refuses to release you, a shadow that will not relent, until the habits and scars of your past are almost forgotten—until you struggle to escape, yet no hand reaches out to lift you.
Sometimes, you may forget the death of those you love, even your own anguish. Sometimes, you think the sorrow has passed, that the pain has subsided… but then, in the quiet of night, when silence stretches across everything, it resurfaces, sudden and unforgiving; you see that nothing has ever truly vanished.
And in that moment, you whisper to yourself:
"Was I ever truly cherished by any soul… at all?"