This is beautiful, and yet full of ache and so many, many questions. I like the style of it, the alternation, the prose that was also poetic and sometimes dreamlike.

I especially liked the line-ending of why shouldn't I be afraid of (so much more alive with just the addition of that "of"), and then the evocativeness of this whole stanza:

what are we becoming as we
slink silently to the shore
plant our feet in the water
and will ourselves to grow