Halfway through my junior year, I thought I knew what I was going to do with this project. I had mind maps and poetry anthologies and theory books and notebooks dating back to high school. But the nature of tragedy so often changes the course of things. The summer before my senior year, I attempted to take my own life. This happened multiple times, and as a result, I had to take a semester off from school. Separating myself from my education, these grand ideas I had, and my literary mentors took a large toll on me. It was as if every idea I once had was erased, and my priorities vastly changed. I once placed all of my self worth into academia, believing my existence was dependent on it. Instead, I found myself working a low-paying job at the local mall, spending my wages on mental health care and transition-related medication. It was a different sort of self-preservation, a kind that lasts longer than diving my head into theory and spilling my heart and emotion and energy into essays upon essays upon essays. It was then, I knew my priorities in writing poetry had also shifted. I abstained from writing for a long time, but I kept a mental record of my attempts, my growth, my faults, my joy, even the little cracks in my ceiling. I found myself staring at one of my newer tattoos, an homage to Homer’s Iliad, Achilles, and the cyclical nature of life, all enclosed in one big circle. We peak, we fall, we rise back up, and recording this on my body made me realize I could record my own experiences in a similar manner, but through the written word. Most of the poems within this collection do not necessarily detail my relapses, but they do detail the emotions associated with my peaking and relapsing. I do not wish to glorify these relapses, however, I do wish to glorify the act of picking the Self back up after each relapse, including the ones that took place the last semester of my senior year. I have been given many second chances. I divided this piece into ten parts with intention. They represent all of the moments over the duration of the past year where I was given another chance to exist, to explore, to preserve my Self despite relapse. The topics of said sections reflect the opportunity to pick up back where I started and allowing myself to explore a new thoughts, past emotions and experiences, and the nature of rebirth itself. It also allowed me to assess what I find important in life, and what I’d rather cast aside. I feel as if over the past year, I have been reborn ten times. And each time, I learned so much more about the nature of the world and myself, that it is impossible for me to not recognize the significance of this through my work. This piece is an act of self preservation. This piece is a lived body, my body, my emotions and experiences. When you read this piece, it is impossible to not see myself reflected in my words. This piece is also an acknowledgement of factors that have affected my lived body, both literally and figuratively. This piece is an assertion of myself, my voice, and continued existence in spite of adversity and trauma. This piece is a song of myself, of my accomplishments, and my love. This piece has evolved with me. This piece is my body, this piece is a record of my life at the present. And ideally, you will see a piece of yourself reflected in this work as well, even if your relation to the words are completely different than mine. Now please, enjoy, and sing the song of myself with me. This is Manifesto: The Sound of Silence.