I am here to say I’m sorry. And the words, once loosened from the throat, feel suddenly heavy—not with the weight of regret, but with the raw, terrifying density of existing. Yes, I am sorry. It is a confession that tastes like iron and honey.

We are told that enough is enough, a dry, arithmetic boundary drawn in the sand to keep us safe from the tide. But I have never been good at arithmetic. I still feel a lot, a lot, and then a little more, until the “more” spills over the edges of the cup and onto the floor.

“Feel” is a verb I conjugate in my sleep. I do not choose to conjugate it; it conjugates me. It is a reflex, a spasm of the heart. I conjure it without thinking, for to think is to pause, and to pause is to risk suffocation. When I do think—that cold, crystalline operation—I find it is better to return to the conjugation. It is the only way to remain viscous, to remain human.

To feel is not a choice; it is a physiological necessity, as involuntary as the intake of oxygen. I do not remember the act of breathing, and yet, if I were to stop, I would cease to be. My chest would flatten into silence. To feel is the air of the soul, and no one, I have learned, can live well while breathing badly. We walk around with such shallow, stunted gasps, afraid of the fullness of our own interiors.

So, listen to me—not because I have reached the end of a map, but because I am standing in the same dense forest: take a deep breath. Let the air rattle the cage of your ribs. Do not fear the expansion. Feel deep, until the sensation vibrates in your marrow. Fill your lungs with the heavy, unrefined compassion of being alive, and feel it all—the joy, the rot, the light, the shadow.
We are breathing the same air, after all.

© Beatriz Esmer