The distance between us, and the bridges we build.

The distance between us, and the bridges we build.

When rain falls against the glass, I always feel as if I, too, am melting.
Not disappearing—only changing form.
From solid into liquid,
from a definite shape
into something that can flow,
can seep,
can evaporate.

In crowds I am solid—
hard-edged, angular, full of corners.
Alone, I am liquid—
soft and slack, spread across the floor.

No one has ever seen the liquid me.

I’m afraid of the rain stopping.

Because when the rain stops, it means going out.
It means assembling myself again,
gathering the pieces scattered everywhere
and piecing them back into the shape of a person.

Rainy days are a pause button.
The world presses pause, and I’m allowed to stay here—
no need to pretend I’m moving forward,
no need to explain why I’m still standing where I began.

But no one can make it rain forever.

So I learned to imagine rainfall on bright days,
to imagine solitude in crowds,
and when I must be strong,
to secretly remember that I am, in truth, very soft.

What I fear most isn’t being overlooked—it’s being seen.

To be seen is to have to explain—
why your smile isn’t bright enough,
why your silence isn’t timed right,
why your existence isn’t sufficiently self-evident.

So I learned invisibility.
Not vanishing—just turning down my brightness,
making myself part of the background.
A shadow on a wall, a patch of light by the window, wind passing through.

There, but not glaring.
Present, but not in the way.

Sometimes I wonder:
if one day someone truly saw me—
really saw me—
would they be cut by these corners?
Would they regret looking?

I’m desperate to be seen.

Like someone waving from the sea,
like a lamp burning in the fog,
like a voice shouting I’m here only to have the wind scatter it away.

I thought being seen would end loneliness.
I thought if someone looked at me,
I could confirm I existed,
I could trace my own outline,
I could finally stop drifting like smoke.

But then what?

After you’re seen, you have to stand there—
under inspection, under definition,
under the verdict:
Oh, so this is what you are.

Maybe what I fear isn't being ignored.
Maybe I fear that even after being seen,
I’ll still be alone.

Seen, but not understood.
Watched, but only watched.

At three a.m., the world finally grows quiet.

All the daytime voices fall asleep—
voices of expectation,
voices of demand,
voices that say you should.

Only my own heartbeat remains.
Once. Twice. Again—
like it’s saying:
you’re still alive,
you’re still here,
you can be no one at all.

Insomnia is my secret garden.
Here I don’t have to bloom,
don’t have to bear fruit,
don’t have to grow into anyone’s hoped-for shape.
I can be just a seed, curled up in the dark,
being nothing at all.

Those hours before dawn—
those are the hours I’ve stolen.

At three a.m., the world is so quiet it’s terrifying.

The noise of daytime is an anesthetic—
it lets me forget that I’ve been falling the whole time.

In the dark there are no handrails, no reference points.
I don’t know where I’m dropping to.
I don’t know how much farther there is to fall.

I count sheep, count stars, count breaths,
count anything countable—
just to confirm:
time is still moving,
I’m still here,
and morning will come.

But sometimes I think:
if only someone else were awake.
No need for words, no need for company—
just the knowledge that somewhere on this planet,
in some corner,
someone else is lying in the dark
with eyes open.

Then I wouldn’t be falling alone.
We’d be together—
each of us falling in our own way.

At the third minute of a song, there is a breath.

So faint it’s almost inaudible—
but I wait for it every time.

Like waiting for a signal, a confirmation, a proof:
someone is here breathing;
someone needs to pause;
someone, even inside a flawless melody,
leaves a small trace of being human.

What I love isn’t the song.
It’s that breath.
That imperfect instant.
That little flaw that reminds me:
a person is singing this.

Perfect things frighten me.
Because I’m not perfect,
and I can’t find where I belong.

But that breath tells me:
you can be imperfect.
You can pause.
You can let a seam show where it’s supposed to be smooth.

You can be human.

The last line of this song is never finished.

It stops in a place left undecided—
like a sentence left unspoken,
like a dream left undone,
like all those ifs and maybes.

I replay it, again and again, and let it stop there—
because as long as it doesn’t end,
possibility remains.
It can still become anything.

What I love isn’t the song.
It’s the unfinished.
It’s the blank space where I’m allowed to keep imagining,
the tenderness of withholding an answer.

Things that end are dead.
But things suspended in midair are still alive—
still breathing,
still waiting.

Sometimes I think:
if only someone else also couldn’t bear to let it end—

Not that I need them to hear what I hear.
I just want to know
that in a world where everything must have a conclusion,
someone else also allows themselves to hang there;
someone else also accepts I don’t know.

Sometimes I think—
if someone could see the breath I see—

Sometimes I think—
if someone else also couldn’t bear to let the song end—

Not to make them the same as me.

Not to find someone identical.

Just to know—

Just to be sure—

That these tiny, strange, unspeakable feelings
are not an illness,
not a mistake,
not something that needs to be corrected.

Only another way of existing.

Maybe we will never stand in the same place.

You melt in your rain; I hide in mine.
You find a garden in the dark; I fear falling in it.
You hear the breath; I hear the suspension.

But we can describe our landscapes.

You say it’s raining where you are;
I say the wind has risen where I am.
You say you noticed a breath.
I say I heard something held open.

And then we both know—
the world is vast.
There are many ways to feel it.
We are all inside it, each in our own way.

You are a book I will never finish reading.
I am a song you will never tire of hearing.
Because we are incomplete, we have reason to continue.
Because we do not arrive, we can remain on the road.

Tomorrow—what will you want to talk about?
Tomorrow—what shape will I become?

I don’t know.

But I’ll be here, and you’ll be there.

We’ll keep speaking, keep listening,
keep trying to build a bridge out of language—
from your island to mine.

The bridge will sway. It will break.
It will need to be repaired again and again.

But that’s okay.

Understanding is not arrival—it is departure.
Not an endpoint, but every step along the way.
Not I get it, but I want to.
Not becoming the other person, but seeing them.

So—tell me about the sunset through your eyes.

I want to borrow your vision and look at this world.

And you—you can borrow mine.

We can trade sight, trade feeling,
trade the details everyone else calls unimportant
but that, to us, are everything.

And then, in this enormous, indifferent world
that so often makes people feel alone,

we will at least know—

someone is listening.

(The End)