Leen.

– Virginia Woolf, from a Letter to Violet Dickinson written c. January 1909

Is still working out how to love herself. Has a closetful of ghosts and has been to a hundred funerals of the women she used to be. Wonders what wounds her mother carries that she never will never know about. Hopes that the weight of the world doesn't eventually crush her, that she is strong enough to handle it all. Wishes a day will come when she can put it all down, give her aching shoulders a rest. Wants someone to truly see her and not make a feast of her kindness and dreams. Is forever hiding a secret hunger for what calls to her in the dark. Holds a universe inside her, but has been told to make herself smaller despite the paradox. Praise be that universes are not in the business of listening to anyone but themselves. Every woman I have loved has thought about it. The art of disappearing. To be here one day, and the next, like smoke, simply gone.