Like a teacup on the counter.

Every now and again I take stock of the people in my life and have no recourse other than to just breathe; the kind of breathing you do when in the throes of any painful physical exertion, the kind of breathing that fortifies your muscles for the next step forward.

Only I don't breathe to force myself onward, I breathe to find the strength necessary to muster all the appreciation these blessings deserve.

But every now and again, I take stock of a certain few people in my life and wonder how there can be so many things I do not understand. I know it is about this, this girl, who I have become: loved, and loving, unable to hold back once I've started even if it takes a million tries to turn the engine over.

I live in constant terror of this: forming so many ties that I can't possibly untangle myself long enough to start walking. And there are so many footfalls I need yet to hear. Despite these footfalls, despite the specific green light of middle America and it's mountains, the heat of the low country, the striations of a million bones dusted to desert, I can't put a stop to it.

Welcome, whoever you might be. I will love you fiercely, and I will never stop.

It is quiet, this need I have, quiet in a way you won't understand. Maybe I am transparent, I don't know, but I speak truths that have been forced upon me, rather than truths I have cobbled out with my hands.

So every now and again when I stop to consider the people in my life, I have to consider how we even got here: you will live an eternity without ever knowing how lucky I am, and I will never know why you can't just have the same.