I'm not sure how effective this update is going to be because I'm profoundly in love. I'm not used to the passion and energy and singleminded focus of first feelings amplifying with time, not fading as a crush touches down on reality but strengthening, growing as the days weeks months pass, the landscape in me brightening further with the sunrise every morning,

                      the dozens hundreds
  thousands of buds of
          currents of flames


      of color of feeling



                      of light



multiplying and not dying; I am not used to joy that does not alchemize into fear. I think everyone in the world has the right not to settle for anything less than what I have. Now that I know it's out there I want to grab everyone by the shoulders and say, keep going, keep looking, oh my God why would you accept anything that isn't this?
                              If someone had planted the exogenous knowledge that love could feel this way into my brain I would spend my whole life looking for it, I'd scour the world. And somehow I was so lucky that I just found it, stumbled upon it as if by accident, chance.

Uhhh what else. I got a stationary bike! I've
missed having access to one ever since
the school gyms closed for COVID last fall.
Cardio is part of my daily routine again, which is extra great because over the last few years I've incorporated exercise into my life thoroughly enough that not exercising now feels wrong; I get restless and can't sit still at work. Discovering that my body loves moving has been instrumental in healing my relationship with it, so I'm glad I'm back at it. I'm currently reading a couple Asimov novels. My belated graduation ceremony is in a few weeks, and my parents and siblings are visiting for it. And

There is no room for cynicism, doubt, or
       hesitation in me anymore.
                  I don't interrogate my joy
   or wonder if I'm being irrational
        or compare what's living in me to written
    reports of similiar experiences
                   from peer-reviewed studies
                   or anecdotal evidence
                   or all of history. All
      around me is the answer
           before I ask the question. My heart

 was an egg for 23 years
     and now it's hatched and grown
             and it's flying away.
  Ever since I was little,
          there have been moments
  when I've been

                so happy

                          that I can't help

         but break into a sprint:
         light sings in my body
         and my body understands and it runs.


It happened once when I started talking to him,
at the intersection near the pharmacy.


    It happened in the snow
    around midnight













             the first time I told him I loved him.



    Now it is always.


                 I have to make myself walk


   most places
         for obvious reasons



                      but if you let me go,







    I could power a city,








                   I could cross the Atlantic.








              I'd shout
                 the whole way,
                     breathless,








     "Keep looking!