Tonight, Tonight

The cocoon wasn’t collapse. It was pressure building toward the snap I refused to delay any longer.

Some nights I’d sit with Tonight, Tonight turned all the way up. Strings tearing at the sky. Billy Corgan howling like prophecy.

It didn’t sound like comfort.
It sounded like a dare.

Believe in me as I believe in you.

And I needed the dare.
Because back then, the days were suffocation.
Fluorescent computer screens I couldn’t stand to look at again.
Inboxes stacked like headstones.
Precision without love rotting my insides.

I thought exhaustion meant failure.
I thought the hollow grind of micromanagement meant I wasn’t enough.

But I wasn’t failing.
I was compressing.
Sharpening.
Waiting for the snap.

The cocoon hurt. Angry some days. Empty others. But still plotting. Still carrying the blade of what was coming.

And Tonight, Tonight reminded me: the cocoon isn’t forever. That pressure has a purpose. That even if you’ve been bent, suffocated, drowned in someone else’s urgency, you can still break open tonight.

What I took from that chapter wasn’t defeat. It was discipline. The kind that can take critique without collapsing. The kind that finishes strong even when the stage feels wrong.

But I also learned this: discipline without devotion is soul rot. Precision without love is a coffin.

Micromanagement sharpened me, sure. But it also showed me how I’ll lead differently.

So I left the rest behind. The fear of being misunderstood. The habit of waiting for permission. The shrinking I did to stay digestible. The anxiety of inboxes, approvals, and other people’s urgency.

I don’t carry those anymore.
I carry a ritual instead.

And when I finally stand inside the life I built—no badge, no meetings, just my voice and my vision—I’ll see it: a room lit only by my own fire.

Strings ripping open the sky.
A voice demanding I begin.
Tonight. Tonight.

And this time, I don’t wait.
I begin.

// Scorpio Veil