Author's Note: Poetry, to me, has always been my most straightforward way of even attempting to make sense of the world and my place in it. At times, those kinds of thoughts can feel somber and quiet, while also instilling the sort of loneliness that forces you to wonder if you really are alone in this. This book and these poems are in many ways my lantern in the night. They're the easiest way for me to put a part of myself out into the world and hope there's someone there, someone who will read what I've written and understand, and in that way I will have found at least one person to keep me company in the darkness with the comforting knowledge that there is someone there. These poems, these 51 fragments of thoughts and existence about life and love and the fleeting beauty of the natural world, are the truest parts of me, a writer you do not know, and a flare gun fired into the sky that if even one person understands what you're saying- then you are not alone.