I am listening to a song that my brother wrote and wondering how we can all know each other so deeply. I am listening to the soft crash of rock and roll from my neighbor’s open window, to the oceanic roar of highway traffic, to the occasional rumble of a city bus groaning beneath the weight of two thousand broken, but not unsalvageable hearts. I am listening to my favorite record. I am twenty-two and thinking so hard about how grateful I am to be twenty-two and thinking so hard about loving and working and hoping and trying because, for a short few years, this is precisely what is expected of you (me, us). I am opening the floodgates. I am writing letters I never mean to send.

To the friend who lies in a hospital bed, pallor bleeding into its sheets: hold on, I’m coming back.

To the woman whose apartment floorboards creak and crack like a hook: quiet them with love letters.

To the boy with the crooked smile: don’t feel badly. Do reassess.

To the still-young boss with a halogen smile and silver spun into his hair: I call you sir because I feel it. Would you have it any other way?

To my brother’s unborn child: you will not know us, but we will love you with our whole hearts.

To my father, whose head is dusted in diamond stubble: it’s not okay, but when I think about it hard enough, I understand.

To the girl I never loved quite enough: I owe you everything. My meager self always comes up short.

To the woman who packed my pomegranate heart like customs contraband into her suitcase: it is yours to eat.

To the doctor who first mourned the loss of the children that were always only my (always-only) potential: this is my dedication to you, in gratitude.

To my grandfather, whose heartbeat was my metronome: miraculously, the clocks have kept up their dizzying spin. Remarkably, my chest rises and falls like the tides, and my stomach still lurches from seasickness. Every day is an ache. Every joy is yours.

To the wiry poet with the wiry hair: let’s write about the unremarkable midday sky. Let’s drink to the birth of six billion new poets and six trillion new poems.

To the stranger who drives a car with a bumper sticker advertising a candidate who wants me dead: I know you believe as deeply as I do. I know we believe the same way.

To the masses, who are never masses, but rather a dizzying collection of stories and a staggered array of heartbeats: we are learning to love right. We are learning to love right.

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