It’s been nearly eleven months. And the words don’t walk around in circles inside of me anymore. Instead, they come in pauses and stutters, a single unrefined utterance at five in the morning, before I fall back asleep. The words are still there I suppose. But they have learned a new rhythm, one that is so gently offbeat from my own fingertips. They grow in both the shadows and the yawning sunlight as it wilts beneath the skyline. My mother speaks them to me slowly, when I listen close enough. They are the surface, but mainly, the depths. They are abundant, if I let myself believe it. In truth, the words have not changed. But I have a little bit. I’m coming back to them though. Just now, they said hello, allowing me to remember syllables like symphonies, the ones that used to play inside of me. 

Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll be able to do the same.  

I've never sat here before. But it's nice. Quiet. Like it has only ever been me and this concrete staircase. A perfectly public secret, well-kept. 

Being here, it gives me that good Heartbreak feeling. The one where you want to stay in a place, with a place, forever. Even though you know it is a certain and strict impossibility. 

Still for a moment, it's nice to pretend. For just a moment

I would like to pretend. 

I turn twenty-three tomorrow. 

And it feels like I just woke up in this skin, this place where a year no longer feels like an eternity. It feels more like

Not enough. 

There's this pressure in my chest. Perhaps it is pain, or purpose. But either way, it is an urgent beast that must be answered to. I wonder, how long will it take for me to let it free.

Would I cease to exist without this moment

Collapsing in on me.

//

On the steps of the Minneapolis Institute of Art