2:32 pm. Just before Twenty-Three.

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