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// I Can't Believe You, Spiral! 
// Story: Abstract Love 
// by Faedelaide 
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I'm losing more of myself. I know, it's par for the course at this point, but... like... can it just chill for a little while? It's so damn infuriating, and I don't even know what I'm angry about. I can barely remember anything anymore. I can't remember my own name. How sad is that, right? What kind of loser do you have to be to forget your own name, and not even be able to do anything about it? The kind of loser that is me... apparently.

Heh, it's funny, All this time, I've been hearing voices in my head scream and scream and scream about everything I've ever done wrong. But the oddest thing is... It's not my voice anymore. It's hers. I haven't spoken in sun-bitch knows how long, but It's never been silent. All the time, I can hear Rainfall's voice... and she sounds so angry, so Irrecoverably irate that it makes me shiver if I think about it for too long. And the worst part is that she's been right this whole time. I am a failure. My parents probably knew it, everyone I'd ever worked for definitely knew it. I just hoped, prayed even, that She of all ponies didn't. But she does. Oh how she knows.

...Y'know, I didn't really wanna think about all of this. I kinda just wanted to drift away into the great beyond or whatever, but it was Rainfall's voice that told me this was what I deserved. This is my true punishment. Slowly, everything that's important to me will blow away in the wind, until all that's left is the broken, empty husk of a pony that used to be somepony. This is my purgatory, and once it's over, I won't even have the mind to realize it. How apropos. I would say I want to die, but all that amounts to is a grim joke, so...

Anyway, on with what remains of my story. Convenient that that's what I remember, isn't it? So it's early in the morning, Rainfall's getting ready for her morning shift, and I'm kind of just lazing around. I wanted to work on one of my latest pieces for an expo in the coming month, but something had me feeling exceptionally distracted. I had to tell her. I needed to tell her, and I needed to do it right now.

I turn to face her, but she doesn't notice. She's doing this cute, squeaky little yawn that she did whenever she was still waking up all the way, so I wait. Telling her can wait for a moment. Then she finishes her yawn, rubs her eyes, grabs her breakfast and heads out the door with a quick "see ya!" It's fine. Telling her can wait till this afternoon.

So I, not having anything better to do, decided to head out to the warehouse to work on my piece. I can't remember what it was, but it doesn't really matter. It wasn't anything spectacular, but at this point nopony cared. It was made by me, and that was what mattered to them.

So I don my coat and scarf and head out on the town. Unfortunately, I barely make it a minute out before I suddenly realize that I'm really cold. I think, and you'll have to take this with a grain of salt cuz thinkin's getting real hard for me, but I think a newspaper labeled it as "the coldest winter since the age of the windigos," which I found kinda funny. Maybe love and friendship was finally starting to run out. All the more reason to believe that Rainfall didn't love me. Whatever, all it means to me at the moment is that I need to start walking faster, lest I end up a pony popsicle on the side of the road. 

I toss open the warehouse's doors, and a dozen faces stare back at me. Not like actual ponies, I mean my paintings... if that wasn't clear... I had to tell myself that just now... Anyway my paintings are facing me, and they all tell me the same thing, speaking in Rainfall's beautiful voice with all the harmony of screeching metal.

You're a coward.

You're not worth the air you breathe.

She'll never love you.

You're nothing.

No one has ever loved you.

No one will ever love you.

...Not even yourself.

And you know what, I believed them. I believed her. I don't know what came over me then, but suddenly, I take a new canvas and just get to work on another piece altogether, all while my expo work sits unfinished in its quiet little corner. I suddenly feel alive, more aware than I've ever been before. I don't even pay attention to the painting, I only relax and watch as my hooves dance around in the air, slowly becoming a blur as they toil away faster and faster on the canvas. I don't know if it's because of my forgetting things, or if I genuinely blacked out in this moment, but what I do remember is the mantra that repeated in my head the whole time.

She does love me. I do love myself. If I love myself, then she'll love me too.

Finally, I step away from the piece. The sky outside is pitch black, and I have only the faint glow of the busted ceiling lights to allow me to see the work I had undoubtedly spent the entire day on. It was painful to look at in the first moments I took it in. The colors were so sharp and bright. It was so defined, yet somehow, also completely incomprehensible. It made me feel queasy, but I couldn't help but to keep staring at it. The limbs were off, curling into compact spirals. The eyes appeared more like blisters than anything I'd use to see with. There was so much wrong with it, but I honestly didn't mind.

It was me, myself, and it was beautiful.