reading.

it took me everything to change myself enough to make this hoodie. i'd been trying for years and couldn't finish it. the fear was making anything at all, being seen in it, and saying out loud that it's good.

so i made it as well as i could. a gold zipper. a hood in one piece, no drawstring. PRESENT on the left chest. inside the left pocket, sewn facing me, one word. "here." i unzip and reach in to find it.

people come for the gold and the color first, and a few of them ask about the word. i made it for the version of me that decides his own yeses. i'm not him every day. so i wear it to remember what it took to make it.

the six pieces under this are what the word means to me. the first is the easiest way in, and each one goes a step deeper.

what present means the word on my chest, said as plain as i can say it. and what it does to me on an ordinary day. doing things i never decided what drift is. the loud kind, a yes that's out before i've turned around, and the quiet kind i don't hear at all. the half-second before the little bit of time between somebody asking and my hands already moving. that's where the whole practice happens. what i do when i catch it the four parts, drift, touch, say "here." and return, one at a time. what each one looks like on a real day. why i keep a practice that misses the days my hand doesn't get there, or it does and i still don't go. and why i'm still at it. what it doesn't fix the money, the sleep, the fear, the time with my daughter. everything the hand and the word leave alone.

— heart