In school, the year was the marker. Fifth grade. Senior year of high school. Sophomore year of college. Then after, the jobs were the marker. That office. This desk. But now that school is over and I've been working at the same place in the same office at the same desk for longer than I can truly believe, I realize: You have become the marker. This is your era. And it's only if it goes on and on that will have to look for other ways to identify the time.

I know it was more than that. But it was also less than that, too.

That air. The air afterwards. I wanted to breathe it in. It felt right to breathe it in. Because we were breathing them in, weren't we? And the building. We were breathing it all in. And I thought, there's a part of this that's actually a part of me now. I now have that responsibility. I am alive, and I am breathing, and I can do the things this dust can't do.

Once the storm comes out, the landscape changes. What you had before is altered in some way. And you have a choice: build something new and better from what is left or abandon it.

Everyone tried with me. And everytime, it felt like the whole point of life was to see if trying was ever enough.

There are times when I worry that I've already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else.

lying awake beside you, these thoughts run through my head.