The most agonizing of all is the loss of a special interest, one that is so deeply integrated into one’s soul that its absence feels like a phantom limb. BDSM and the 24/7 D/s dynamic weren't just "interests", or a simple flare that needs to be left, it was a contract. It is the rhythm of my heartbeat and the structure of my sanity.
Now, that rhythm has stopped. My heart no longer beats to the sound of his.
When your special interest is a relationship dynamic, its loss isn't just a quiet hobby, it’s a silent collapse of your world, bit by bit the fun, the live, the happiness are depressed and suppressed. As a submissive in heart, I don’t just want his lead, I regulate through it. Without the reins, I am untethered, drifting in a sensory overload that I no longer have the tools to manage.
The longing for him to take control is a physical ache. But my man, my Sir who holds the power to beat out the pain in me is gone, he is locked in his own prison of burnout.
It is a cruel irony, the two of us are drowning in the same sea, yet we cannot reach for each other. I am starving for the power that anchors me, while he is too depleted to even hold his own weight. We are forced into a strangers existence that feels like a lead weight, stripping us of the only language we know how to speak.
Mourning the Muse
This burnout has silenced my art and paralyzed my pen. My creativity was fueled by the intensity of our exchange, and without it, I am a stranger to my own expression. I look at my work and see a person I no longer have the energy to be.
I am living in a place where the identity I spent years building has been replaced by a hollow survival mode. It is a grieving process for a self that is still technically here, but entirely out of reach.
Illustrated by Gemini