The stone moved. Like the guardian angel Gabriel, my lover moved the door that kept me inside of the tomb. I walked to the opening where I was greeted by several familiar faces.

My lover gifted me with a pile containing the clothes I’d stripped from The Beginning, and the offering plate from An altar for my ego.

I knelt with the pile, poured ink into the plate, and made an incision across three lines on my collar bone representing the Three Tries I’d made to please my super ego. Like a slash through a phrase, you’d hope to never exist, I draw a line through the marks, unable to erase or forget but able to understand they are wrong.

I strip off the institution suit and place the armor of my thirty-year-old being back onto my body and then I exit the tomb.