i am trying to find a way to live and tell these stories. if i am alive and you are alive we can only try to fill the air with our words. if i persist in being, i want these words to hold me in place. i may not be able to write something as delightful as one of your favorite poems. i have filled every day whispering the names of people that don’t exist. i am learning to smile soft and pure. sometimes i only want this feeling to stay and last. sometimes these words bleed from the cracks in my lips and the paper cuts on my hands and i feel so goddamn empty and fragile. it makes my heart heavy with the warmth of feeling. i am thinking of poetry, flowing lightly through my bones. in these last exhausting days i have tried to calm my mind but it’s almost as impossible as pretending that i don’t exist. i’m starting to voice the names of those people that don’t exist. they have poured so many words into me. i know their secrets like god knows the sun and the moon. i recapitulate their words that they so badly wished i would have kept tucked away only because i wish i could proclaim the unknown to strangers as they so comfortably did with me. i am trying to find silly places to pour my promises. where everything feels like liquid and there are smiles on faces. where it feels like being in love instead of small and lost. i just wish i could bury myself in these stories and the weight of these stained pages, my distant voice, and all this won’t feel like too much. nothing will pull at my eyes. i will be ready and i won’t say no to anything. i will take a deep breath. i will not be outraged, but content.