becoming

If I knew my name, I’d tell you. I’d whisper it in your ear, my lips brushing the skin of your face, my breath warming the space between us. Or I’d yell it from the top of the hill everyone calls a mountain, my voice reaching the top branches of the trees where the ravens circle. I’d tell you other things about me too, if I knew. I’d place words on leaves in the splashing stream, waiting until you’d read one to send another. I’d fold sentences into pieces of scrap paper and fly them to you on gusts of wind. I’d share everything with a handful of dried grasses, light a fire, and let you read the smoke messages that curled through the night air. I’d introduce you to who I am about to become… if I thought I was done.

— heidi kalyani, 2019 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line