There’s more to delete than to say: a novel of more space than word.

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There is a tiny ceramic rhino I ordered from England. I bought him specifically to hold a ring that I no longer have, and now he is not a useful thing, but I love him nonetheless.

He was willing to hold an unobviously heavy thing for a time, and it’s hard not to love the will of that.

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This new kitchen is so big. I bought a collection of cake tins and those, plus my normal baking collection, barely fill the cabinets. I do not eat cake, but I think I will still learn how best to make one anyway.

Anyway.

Remember when my whole kitchen was a prison stinger on my desk, a pile of ramen, and a bag of dry cooked beans?

Things change and everything passes, and we make do with what we have even if it naught but cliché.

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In prison, you learn how to hold things in your mind, the way children learn to hold their breath as long as possible. First, it’s maybe just one thing– for me, the way Dave wrote, so lean and rapidfire. Later, all of Dave. Later, later, all of you.

A sloth can breathe underwater longer than a dolphin, and I can hold an entire world in my head and felt kept by it and in keeping of it. Even if none of this is actually happening.

I call this the prison tax, and I need to unlearn this. I need to learn to make calls and dinner plans, and hold with my arms and my voice and my physical presence.

I need to learn how to breathe when I am not underwater.

And I will.

Four years ago today, I learned how to tell strangers about things I saw in prison– stood at a microphone and read about my period while inside. Three years ago today, I went to a concert with the now-exboyf and my roommate, and learned how romantic love could once again take a trusted space in my life, how it could hold an unobviously heavy thing like me. Two years ago today, they told me there were no more anomalies in my brain, no more obstructions on my way to healing, and I learned how to live with my new and changed self.

Today, I learned how to make mustard. A much smaller thing than the years before, but it is still learning, and like the new kitchen cabinets, I know there is plenty of room for more.