When your loyalty has been tested enough times, you can try to mend it with gold like a broken vessel. Despite all the effort, it will never be whole again. No matter how beautiful the result may seem, it remains fundamentally flawed.

Some might argue that this is what it means to be human: that we are destined to suffer, and how we ultimately endure our struggles is what defines us.

But I argue that once a person crosses a certain threshold, there is no turning back. Psychiatrists would label it as a mental disorder, but I call it facing reality. And so, solitude becomes either a personal prison or a liberation, depending on how you choose to relate to it.