They tried to tell me that moths don’t have mouths, at least not after their larval stage.
Ah, to still be such a fool to believe that a thing is only itself.
I know to fear that which a thing is not. I know what a moth does not eat with its mouth that does not exist.
Each of us, after all, is a Ship of Theseus. Every cell we replace, every change we undergo, takes us a step farther from who we were.
The only continuity holding each of us together is a story. Our “identity.”
It is not real, but neither are the mouths they devour it with.
Moths are drawn to the light of ego, and a moth-eaten selfhood loses its integrity over time.
Their wings beat at the fringes of my mind. Countless pairs. A swarm of them.
So many holes in my identity. I’ve become a hundred selves—or a thousand, I lose track so easily—and every day I become more and less.
I no longer recognize as myself the person I was yesterday. I barely know who I was this morning.
Who is even the person typing this now?