The moment things got too silent it felt like cortisol signed a new two-year lease on the three-bedroom, four-bathroom unit in your mind. It’s the fuckin’ penthouse unit of your brain, complete with a bitchin’ sweet view of your life and your complete, unspoiled history. That safety barrier of choosing which information you reveal and hide to others doesn’t work here, silly. Not only that, it’s also been given unrestricted executive-level access to every unresolved issue that’s been neatly filed in your no-longer-secured archive of fears, trauma, and insecurity. Not the kind of shit that makes you piss your pants, but more the kind of shit that makes you no longer want to put pants on.

The first thing it decreed as God King Emperor of your brain was to assign your nervous system the highest viewpoint possible with the sole occupation of looking around without restriction. Then the piece of shit made things worse by giving it a pair of long-range binoculars. Now this thing is awake at 2:30 AM with you, looking back at shit from nine years ago screaming:

“HEY! DO YOU SEE THIS SHIT?! THIS MIGHT POSSIBLY BE RELATED TO THE THING THAT’S HURTING US. NOT SURE, BUT I’M SURE YOU NEED TO KNOW BECAUSE I’D WANT TO KNOW. OKAY, YOU CAN GO BACK TO BED NOW. WE’RE ALL GOOD. WAIT, WE’RE GOOD, RIGHT?!”

Then it misinterprets the silence as awkward silence, downs its fifth white Monster energy drink while simultaneously cracking open another, and breaks the silence by playing a fuckin’ Tyrone Davis song on the radio. Now your mind is thrown into an exhausting uphill battle that’s scheduled to last longer than a Lord of the Rings marathon.

Cortisol wasn’t satisfied with the studio apartment you gave it by the train station where its presence was drowned out by the regular operating routine of your life. Now this motherfucker is throwing parties ’til 5 AM and bringing over unscrupulous, questionably shady people to give guided tours while blasting dubstep and country music on your sweet 10,000-watt sound system.

“Ladies and gents, if you observe this dumbass from 2022, you’ll see where he got rejected not once, not twice, but thrice! Who the fuck hits a trifecta of rejection?! Ghosted by two of those three?! Those ladies were really swingin’ for the fences! They made Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa look mediocre as fuck! Those are some impressive numbers, bro!”

Then they’ll take a few steps and observe this fucked up, broken version of you presented as a statue under duress:

“If you look to your left back in 2013, you’ll see where the rejection got really bad one year for this loser. Not only did he get his heart broken, he applied to over 200 jobs, got replied back to on a dozen, went four rounds on one of them, and still ended up with no job! He stepped in dog shit while walking to his minimum-wage job five times that year! That’s like…”

“YOOO! I THINK THIS ONE SPECIFIC INSECURITY STARTED AT AGE TWELVE WHEN HIS CONFIDENCE WAS COMPLETELY SHATT—”

“Jesus Christ. Who the fuck let nervous system come down here again? Security, get it back upstairs looking at shit, please.”

“I’M JUST SAYING WE SHOULD LOOK INTO IT—”

“Remove him. For fuck’s sake, does anyone have any ketamine?”

Sounds of struggling and distant yelling as the nervous system is forcibly returned to the observation deck by the Polynesian-sized Fight-or-Flight Security Detail.

“I’M TELLING YOU THIS SHIT STARTED IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!”

“Anyways, as I was saying, that’s like some 4D chess level of rejection. It’s so complex in the creation of its trauma, that shit’s layered like one of those Japanese cakes you see on Instagram! No doubt its insecurities will ripple on through his life for decades!”

And just because cortisol’s an asshole who doesn’t respect boundaries, it’ll still insist on taking everyone into that exhibit that’s been quietly tucked away in the corner of your brain. The one that has big, pillowy canvas sheets draped over the massive wooden container boxes you strategically placed to prevent others from discovering it. You know, because it’s still under construction. You tucked it so far into the corner that you occasionally forgot it existed. It’s been under construction for so long it’s basically become part of the architecture. You can choose to ignore it and act like it doesn’t exist, but remember, cortisol’s an asshole. It was railing lines and telling others on the elevator up about the Fear of Dying Alone exhibit, the motherfuckin’ pièce de résistance of this loser’s life.