I signed the forms.
Agreed to the procedure.
Nodded a last-minute consent with a polite smile.

I’m told to fast the night before.
This.
This I am good at.
Ash Wednesday. Good Friday. Lent. Vigils that stretch past midnight.

Jejunium pro peccatis.
Hard pews. Bruised knees. Sit. Stand. Kneel.
I am good at rituals that demand suffering.

But this is a bizarre, unholy ritual—
no ashes smudged on my forehead,
no murmured bless me, Father,
no absolution whispered through a screen.
And definitely no feast at the end.

Not fasting to atone for sins or worship a god—just so I don't choke on my own vomit.
Wait—what sin am I paying for, exactly?

A mind inherited.
A body out of alignment.
A failure to move through the world with appropriate gratitude and ease.

It's okay, though—I lean into the hunger because it helps.
My empty body is pliable, quieter, easier to say yes with.
And when the time comes,

I walk.
No.
I am walked through the underground tunnels by a minder from the unit, who sports a high ponytail and chunky sneakers.

Her ponytail bounces with each clipped step. She glances back, pointed, as I lag.

We arrive. The waiting-room door clicks shut behind me.

Locked.

I sit in blue—sticky, institutional chairs.
My minder: watchful, bored.

I... I want to scream.
I want to tear it all down—
rip every laminated sign from the wall,
flip tables and chairs,
send clipboards skittering across the floor.

No—

I want to unzip my skin,

peel it off, leave it in a heap on the tile.

Step out of this fasted body.

Become bare.

Unnamed.

Unchartable—

But I don't.

I stretch.
I scroll.
I uncurl and curl my fists.

I listen.
Listen for the clinical hum of current from the next room.
Hum.
Shrill.
Electric.
It climbs, then drops.

I clack my teeth in time with the pulse, counting each interval—
like measuring seconds between thunder and lightning, waiting for the strike.

Sometimes I start crying for no reason.
Tears slide silently onto my shirt.
One tissue.
Handed over brusquely.
Measured care.
Silent, tidy crying is acceptable.
Any sob—too loud.
Not allowed.

Weeks pass, and objections lodge further down my throat:

No.

Wait.

Stop.

I don’t want—

Week by week, I fade. Dimmer.
Present enough for my body to be perpetually terrified. Terrified of forgetting anything.

Which is strange—
to fear losing a life I have little interest in participating in.

I’m not afraid of forgetting the big things.
The big things can be relearned.
It’s the small ones.

The smell of violin rosin.
Looking back at a friend mid-paddle on a canoe trip, laughing.
The weight of my dog pressed against my leg, chin resting perfectly in the crook of my knee.
My students’ hands tugging at my sleeve.
Tiny shoes I helped tie—
each loop and knot
a gesture of tending.

Small.
Insignificant.

But the things that make me me,
even as parts of me vanish.

My name is called.
Sweater.
Phone.
Glasses.
All handed over.

I shuffle half-blind into a room—
too bright, too clean, too crowded.

A kind nurse shows me pictures of his dogs.
I’m supposed to smile, right?
Say, I’m okay. This is fine.

Oxygen.
Electrodes.
The oxygen smells wrong.
The gel is cold.
The electrodes tug at my hair.

“Consent confirmed,” says the psychiatrist.
As if my body signed.
As if my pulse agreed.
As if terror weren’t its own refusal.

The anesthesia starts.
The room stays.
But I don’t.

Something slams.
Not sleep or floating,
but a cliff.

Pinned.
Muted.
But aware.

Large, heavy hands on my shoulders—the first physical contact I’ve had in months.
“You are safe,” the kind nurse says.
But I don’t believe him.

Time fractures and skips.
My body gone—

then suddenly dragged back.
Too fast.
Too sharp.
Too loud.

Air forced in.
Again.
Again.

“Big breaths, Brianna.
You’re just panicking...”

I choke.
Flail.
Sputter.

I’m not dead.
Not maimed.
Not disfigured.

What I am is furious.
Not at the wires, the electricity.
Not even at the cold, clinical precision of it all.
At needing it. At knowing I need it.
At having to say yes while my body screams no.
At how quickly I can stop existing—
how fast I fade.

I’m rolled back to the unit.
Efficient.
Routine.
Resolved.

A juice.
A cookie.
Just like Communion.
Take, eat.
This is your reward.

A reward for learning to disappear politely.

Twenty-six times I complete this ritual,
a novena to some unknown god.

And after the last—
I take my body home—
but not all of it.
Some pieces stay behind.

They ask,
“You feel better, right?”

“Yes,” I say.
Because that’s the correct answer.

My body hesitates.
But how can I say anything else?

I signed the forms.