I’m plotting against grief in full steam futility. I’m all-in ignorant in the face of forces that will break me, all-knowing against the wind, and I’m always falling into things, like trying to feel the future from my porch on the cold wood bracing my bare feet to The Sound of Jazz. Like I’ve earned it in bouts of blood through spirals of anxiety in preparations I’ve overthought. My toes are losing touch with reality, but October nights remind me I’m still here and I could never let someone save me from myself, but love me enough to watch me flail and still tell me it’s going to be ok because I only believe it when other people say it. There is going to be breaks when I can’t return the same, when the ugly interiors of my brain lose color and I rely on clichés for comfort about being in a better place. Tomorrow I will wake up thirty-seven, and I’ll wander the forest suspended for those few miles in the damp because there’s comfort in quiet abandon, and betrayal in that creeping grief.