“I Ask The Sea” by Seraphine Saintclair

“You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts.”

— Philip Arnold

Moon, Jupiter, and Venus Conjunction

For You, Exactly As You Are

You wake up tired, scroll bad news until it blurs. Answer emails, jaw clenched tight— or can’t even bear to look.

You say “I’m fine” with three tabs open—rent, repair, relief— and one on how to sleep through the stress, or how not to sleep all the time.

You forget. You snap. You soften. You try again.

If you are carrying children, parents, partners— meals, medications, moods— and no one asks how you’re doing, this is me asking.

Not just if you’re managing. If you’re okay. If you’ve been held, or fed, or even seen.

How are you, really?

If your brain jumps tracks mid-sentence, mid-plan, mid-dream— if the dishes feel impossible, if you forgot again and hate yourself for it— please hear this: you are not alone. Not at all.

This world wasn’t built for minds like yours, but that doesn’t mean yours is wrong. It means you’ve been trying to bloom through cracked concrete, drinking whatever rain you could reach, and still—still—you flowered.

If the world was made for standing without thinking, for walking without fear, for climbing stairs without pain, for seeing every sign, for hearing every word—

If holding a pen, a fork, a steering wheel costs more energy than you have, if you measure your day in spoons left, not hours passed—

you are not broken. You are not a burden. The burden is stairs with no ramp, streets that swallow wheels, silence when you ask for help.

If rest feels dangerous, if joy feels stolen, if you’re so used to pushing through you forgot how to just be— you’re not the only one.

The world wasn’t built for you. Not for most of us, was it? But you are here anyway, making it work how you can.

That is not failure. That is survival. That is a kind of brilliance.

You are not failing. You are not falling behind. You are responding to a world that punishes tenderness.

And still— you are kind. You are trying. You are here.

If you wonder whether I mean you, I do. Even if the voice says "not me," I still do.

Come as you are: tired, tangled, beautiful.

You don’t have to fix yourself to deserve rest. You don’t have to be better to be loved.

You already are loved.

Still.

Still.

I was sixteen when a boy told me- “I’ll cross oceans for you and scream your name from rooftops.” I felt like I finally got a hold of love , nuzzling its scent on my fingertips.

Years in the periphery, we lost sight of eachother or maybe there weren't many rooftops left to shout my name from.

Today, at the dinner table, I saw my husband deliberately taking small bites from his burger while everybody else was hustling to leave the table. I realised I still hadn’t finished my meal. While I cut my steak , his presence loomed beside me- the most blissful silence I have ever been in , the slowest passage of time.

Maybe, love doesn't come from people who can bind the moon to your arms. It is someone who can let go of a few minutes to sit by your side , in a world that doesn't wait.

Oh, Hello May! l Rami Ammoun

– Rupi Kaur

16 April, 1939 Letters to Véra by Vladimir Nabokov

“She read paperbacks too, one after the next like she was chain-smoking—romance, science fiction, old pulp fantasy. All she wanted to do was sit, unbothered in a circle of lamplight, and live someone else’s life.”

―Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo