This book comes from the places where light doesn't shine, where my poetry became resilient and still grew in the dark. I am alive in the grit of teeth, in the soft space of the inner elbow, in the finger pads of my love. This book is about taking the time to reflect, to question, to allow yourself to listen, to speak, to breathe, to reward yourself for beating yesterday and diving face first into today. No, this isn't my first day on this planet and it isn't yours either. But I wonder how would it be, if we lived, embracing it all? As if we were just now grasping what it means to be alive, beyond existing? Danielle Shorr is Say Word's 2016 One Mic Poet.