Let me be the wave. And if I cannot be the wave, let me be the rupture at the bottom. Let me be that terrible first rift in the dark. — Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies I've been dwelling recently on [what feels to be] both the essence and futility of words in times like these. I'm reaching that season where I want to let my voicemail box fill up until it rejects calls automatically. When I go through these periods of courting silence, I can become so involved* with making a poem or writing an essay that I'm not constantly thinking or worried about how that desire for inner peace or discovery is affecting others**. I'm no longer afraid of revealing myself to myself [shout out to a decade of BCT and working the 4th step ]. That's the goal of recovery —to dig in deep enough to be transformed while writing the poem. Even when sadness feels Sisyphean, it doesn't bother me. And I don't think I'm treating the mountain like a hedonistic treadmill - it's just that the boulder is easier to push when it's