Here is a twist. Out there the world sounds like this and by now I am used to that noise. It is a noise I can descipher. I am even able to make contact. I can see someone else out there, far away, and establish an exchange, a deal, of mutual acknowledgement. I could. I can. It takes effort to let yourself be seen. It is a terrifying act. It places you, the reluctantly alive, at the centre of feelings you tend to avoid; to keep yourself whole, perhaps, even if empty.
(It is survival, something says.)
And yet I do it. And feel fragile for even thinking it is possible. Hope shatters itself as it grows. It cracks and reshapes as it holds more and more of what you are. It is not intended for that purpose. You cannot really live within.