Four lines stolen from a poem

My friend (I call her Soup) is one fine writer.  She taught me tricks a few years ago.  Okay, so it was a few decades ago now, and she was my neighbor, and her real name is Andree, and if you want to know how much I just plain like this lady, then you can read all about it in a little book I wrote, a memoir called Into the Tangle of Friendship.

But that is beside the point right now, because Soup grew up and I moved away, and Soup's children—they grew up, too.  The last time I saw Soup's youngest, Aimee, she was young, very young.  She was carefree.

Today Aimee is a high school student and a poet, and Soup just sent two of her newest works on to me.  There is a line in one that strikes me as particularly alive and yearning and exquisite, and I hope Aimee won't mind if I share it here.  Look at this.  Say it out loud and listen.  The words of a young soul leaned forward:

How

can I say what I’ve lost

if you’re not

drowning yet.

— Aimee Seu