There’s a space between you and me. It’s relative and shifting, stretching and contracting, but there nonetheless. Do you feel it?  

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It’s her heady flirtation asking me to come closer, locking eyes in a crowded room. A stretched hand reaching for her knee under the table, a thumb tenderly stroking side to side. My peripheral is blurred when I hold her hand, nothing else exists when my eyes are closed kissing her cheek.  

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I’m watching a couple at a distance while I lay at Alamo Square on a rare energetically warm day. His hand politely, playfully grazes her arm with just enough space left between them on a shared blanket. Their facial features are indiscernible, their names unknown, and yet, I’m deciphering if they’re on a first date. 

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Walking through the community garden near my apartment, I pick off a mint leaf – planted by who knows who and when knows when – and the rough edges scratch my tongue, subtly sweet and forwardly cool. Reaping the benefits sowed by another’s time and attention. 

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We sit on opposite ends of the couch, bodies tight. Palpable tension and stale air smothers the room after a misunderstanding. Confusion and hurt from his actions are braided with my eagerness to make things right. We push and pull until a resolution is found. I hope we hug after. 

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In recent years, I’m finding new terrains within myself. Depths uncharted, crevices I didn’t know existed, identities and desires previously too frightening to welcome. The person I am and the person I want to be is rested between my actions and reactions, authenticity is found between diffidence and self-assurance.  

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“Spaces Within, Spaces Between” will concern itself with space, the frequencies just below the surface and the nuances that bear unassuming weight in a given moment. Through personal essays rooted in conversation and narrative, I’ll explore the distances in myself and with others, how vastness – whether it's under my skin, at eye level, or an unperceivable range – holds intimacy.  

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Distance is abundance, silence holds sound. Cup your hands and listen closely.