"The Final Boss: Nine of Swords" is a traditional art piece by Laura Lemur. Colored with alcohol markers, Prismacolor pencils, and lined with black ink, it depicts a female warrior fighting a heart. Equipped with nine Swords, the heart will not easily give up the fight.

I received an impromptu tarot reading one day. After reviewing the other cards, the tarot reader explained how the Nine of Swords (one of the cards she pulled for me) influenced my current circumstances. She said there was a specific figure trying to re-enter my life and warned me not to rekindle with this figure. She also said this figure, if I reestablished a relationship with them, would bring a lot of drama and toxicity in my life. In a broader sense, the Nine of Swords symbolizes fear, anxiety, depression, despair and nightmares. I feel that I've been experience a lot of that over the past year (and am just breaking free from this energy). This isn't intended to spark a debate on the validity/ethics of tarot reading, rather, to highlight some of my own recent mental battles.