She said she was barely breathing.
I believed her.

I never saw her like that.

I have seen what nests in the gut
the kind that feeds on hoping,
that gorges on every second chance you hand it.

But here is what I know of rivers:
the horse that drowned you once
will drown you both again.
This is not cruelty.
This is arithmetic.

Barely breathing.
Which means breathing.
That is where all begin.

Not with the thing you'd gut yourself to remove.
Not with what only knows how to wound.
Not with that definition about pain.

With the lungs still working.
With the woman who, even hollowed,
reached for the word for it.

That is not someone built only to suffer.
That is someone still trying to speak.

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Valnuary, in the year 1003 AF.