i am angry.
for the world is a place more fallen than i had
expected.
and insofar as i am human, it is my world.

i am proud.
yet the strokes with which i paint
and write
and live
are strokes that so incompletely tell my story.

i am strong.
i am strong four times over
for every single snapshot of my tender underbelly.

i am alone.
insofar as i am misunderstood and see that many are misunderstood,
siloing our way through this befuddled journey--
storehouses of beauty long forgotten even by the wind.

i am weary.
feeling that for every side, there is another, held in tension with itself,
in this place where many voices strangle peace.

i am held.