At the last show, Night asked me point-blank… 

“What the fuck do you know about redemption?” 

My answer is simple, not fucking much.  Because if I knew what redemption felt like, I would also know what forgiveness feels like.  You see, I believe redemption is a two-way street between two different people. 

Part one: the atonement, apologizing for the mistake, learning from it, and growing into a better person. 

Part two: forgiveness, the offended party must be ready to see the growth and remorse in the other.  They must be willing to see the work the other person is putting in, reach out to them, and take the actions that they’re taking to not go back to the person they were. 

Now for the last two goddamn years I’ve been doing the first fucking part and not a goddamned soul will acknowledge it!  I have risen to the occasion.  I have defended Arcadia and its people when called to do so multiple times from invading forces and from tyranny.  I have pushed myself to the edge to the point that there were moments where I asked myself if it was worth it or if I was better off giving in to my own intrusive thoughts and taking my last victim away from the mirror he was staring at me from. 

Gemini, Night, neither of you gets it.  My fight has never been against either of you, even before Deathrow; it was always for you.  For the love of Arcadia, for the things I thought I could one day have, but now… now I’m old, alone, and miserable trying to put on a stalwart visage, but I am truly done.  I’m done asking for forgiveness from people who won’t reciprocate.  I am done seeking absolution from people who deny it to me. 

I am done looking for forgiveness from that man in the mirror.  Because of the rejection from people like Night, Gemini, and Michaela.  I will always care for you, and I will always fight for you.  This week, Ring King, you will both look at the man whose hand you’ve swatted away, and I will make you both feel every ounce of that rejection.  One shot, one kill, and as I walk away and all you hear is a song about the Dead Man Walking.  I pray in that moment, you both sit alone in your own hollowness, feeling the emptiness which I do, the rejection I feel, because I may know fuck all about forgiveness but I know everything about longing, and it’s how I want to leave you both… Longing for something you know will never happen.  Wishing for the moment that someone will reach their hand out and tell you that you’re good enough, that you deserve to be loved and appreciated. 

When I’m done this week, I will cast off the yolk of my own sorrow and the albatross that’s held my head under the waters of depression while bestowing that same yolk upon yours.