We Name Them Anyway

We name them anyway— in a world unraveling, thread by thread— we name them Hope, and Rain, and Wildflower, as if language alone could save them. We teach them to walk on melting ground, to laugh in the shadow of sirens, to draw suns on walls as forests burn beyond the glass. We hold them close, not because we believe the world will be kind— but because in their breath there is a softness we’ve forgotten how to breathe ourselves. They come not asked, but chosen— not for the dying, but for the fight against it. And when they cry, we don’t say “be strong,” we say: You were born into this world— but you are not the storm within it.