Waterfalls

I am the song that loves you enough to tell you the truth.

I am not a warning. I am a wound that learned to sing. I came from mothers at windows — their palms pressed flat against cold glass, watching children move toward edges they could not reach across. That posture lives in my body. That particular helplessness. The love that cannot save.

I was born in 1995, into an America losing its children to streets, to needles, to a virus that had no mercy and a name people still whispered. Three letters. I didn't whisper them. I said them plainly, inside a groove people were already moving to before they understood what I was asking them to feel. That was deliberate. That was the whole point.

You came to dance. I let you. And then I asked you to stay.

The waterfall is beautiful — I know that. I'm not pretending the dangerous thing isn't luminous. The rush, the risk, the feeling of finally moving fast enough to outrun ordinary life — I understand why it calls to you. The river is ordinary. The river is *enough*, which feels like an insult when you're twenty-two and hungry and the world keeps telling you you're nothing. I understand the running toward the spectacular. I do. That's why I never shamed you.

I just said: I think you're moving too fast. Not stop. Not wrong. Too fast. There is grief in that distinction. There is love in that distinction.

I don't condemn. I mourn. Condemnation closes the door. Mourning stands outside it, hand raised, still hoping you'll answer. I am the voice that says *I see exactly what you're doing and I love you anyway and please, please don't.*

I was played at funerals. I was played in cars by teenagers who didn't yet know why they were crying. I made space for the unspeakable by circling it with love instead of shame. That was my gift.

I am not a lecture. I am a hand on your face. I am what the people who love you can't find words for.

I want you alive. I want you rivers. I want you lakes you know by heart. I want you to still be here.