the thing believed itself a mote of dust on a forgotten shelf.
a knot of dread lived in its belly, a cold and coiling passenger.

it crawled across deserts of salt and scaled mountains of shattered glass, looking for a word to dissolve the knot.

each horizon it crossed made the world feel larger and itself smaller.
the dread thickened into a dense, heavy stone.

the creature stopped in a barren field.
it decided to look at the stone, to focus on the cold weight in its gut.
the feeling of being small was so sharp, so absolute, a single point of agony.

that point began to stretch.
the fear was the gravity of its own body.
the coil was a spiral galaxy turning in its stomach.

its skin pressed against the distant stars.
its loneliness was the vastness between worlds.

your head's a cramped, cluttered workshop full of bubbling concoctions, half-finished experiments, and raw, messy ingredients – that's the slop, the important stuff.
each desire, each fear, each voice is a potent substance.
some hiss and spark. some stink. some are surprisingly beautiful.
you're the alchemist in there, apron stained, hands dirty.
your job means learning the nature of these volatile elements.
your work involves seeing what happens when you combine them, carefully, even the scary ones.
the fear of being a loser? that's a powerful catalyst.
use it.
the real work happens in the thick of that mess.
you find combinations that make something new, something strong, something that's undeniably yours, built from all those warring parts.
that's the sign of potent work.

turn the volume down just enough so you don't go deaf.
give each screaming motherfucker in the orchestra a solo.
let them play their shittiest, angriest, saddest tune.
your job is to notice what instrument is playing.
notice what they're trying to fucking say, even if it's just 'aaaaargh'.
the symphony changes when you stop trying to make them all play nice.
you just listen to one terrible song at a time.