I trust the tender bow of the branch that bends as I walk out on a limb. Life has brought me here again and again. And as the tensile strength gives way to the ethers, it's time for me to leap.

A memory:

Guttural cry rumbling up from the depths of my belly, feet planted firmly on the earth, I see you, and I stand my ground.

Silence emerges like it's the only truth.

Stop to listen. Stop to listen.

Power down the firewalls, open up the caged jaws that masticate, satiate, and instigate freedom.

Despair is the enormous sound of being locked underground for fear of life's reverberation.

Sometimes we must cross riverbeds to get where we’re going.

Life requires that kind of devotion, incisive attention to traverse the spaces between.