Just finished a 12-hour shift in the ER. My feet are screaming, my back is one giant knot, and all I want is a scalding shower to wash off the day. Not the blood or the smells, but the feeling of holding that teenager's hand while we called time of death. The quiet after. The way her mother's scream didn't sound human.

My brain doesn't know how to switch off from that. It goes straight to the worst places. To memories I can't scrub out. Sometimes the only thing that cuts through the static, the guilt, the fucking noise in my head... is a different kind of pain. Or a different kind of feeling altogether.

There's a part of me that craves being pinned down, hard. Not in a gentle way. To have someone take complete control because I'm so tired of holding it all together. To feel a hand around my throat just enough to make me focus on the lack of air instead of the pictures in my head. To be fucked until I can't think at all. To have my body used in a way that makes me feel something—anything—other than this heavy, sad weight. To come so hard I forget my own name for a few seconds.

It's fucked up, I know. My therapist would have a field day. But after days like today, the idea of a tender, loving connection feels like a foreign language. What my body screams for is raw, and selfish, and real. To have a cock shoved deep in my cunt, a palm smacked against my ass until it stings, my tits gripped tight. To be filled up with cum and left a sweaty, used mess on the sheets. To feel alive in the most primal, broken way possible.

Then maybe I could sleep. Maybe the ghosts would stay quiet for a few hours.

Don't mind me. Just a tired nurse with a fucked-up coping mechanism. The kid's asleep. The apartment is quiet. And the silence is so loud.