"Second attempt" by PQHAÜS

Acrylic on canvas / 16x20 inch / 2026 / PQHAÜS

Attempt means trying something for the first time. It doesn’t say what you are trying, but it always feels like it carries more weight than it should. In life, we are always attempting something whether we notice it or not. Everything that feels natural now was once unfamiliar. We learned how to walk without knowing if we would fall, how to speak while holding eye contact, how to lie to protect ourselves or to protect someone else from something they are not ready to feel. It doesn’t really matter what it is. We keep attempting anyway. Not because we are ready, but because there is no pause in this. It keeps moving, and you move with it.

For some, there is an attempt that does not come back. It happens quietly. Too quietly for something that takes everything with it. And then everything else continues like nothing was taken at all. The sun still rises. People still wake up, go to work, study, laugh, cry, sleep. There are questions that don’t leave, but they stay unspoken because there is nowhere to place them. Life does not stop long enough to hold them.

And then there are the ones who didn’t succeed in that attempt. The ones who wake up again. Not in relief. Not in clarity. Just… awake. Breathing without asking for it. Eyes open to the same ceiling, the same light, the same world that did not notice they were gone for a moment. They are given another attempt, but it doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like something returned to the wrong address. An attempt to live again. To stand, to speak, to move through the day while something inside them is still sitting in that other place where everything almost ended. The air touches their body like it used to, but it feels different now. Too close. Too aware. Like something is watching them continue.

The days they were gone, nothing paused. The sun came up and went down without hesitation. People woke up, went to work, studied, laughed, cried, and went to sleep. Everything stayed in motion. Only they stopped. And now they are placed back into it, expected to keep up with something that never waited for them.

There is nothing you need to make out of this second attempt to live. No meaning you need to build to justify staying. This second attempt to live does not need to become anything. It does not need to be better, or stronger, or worth it. It can just be what it is. You can just be here.

So just live. Not to prove anything, not to fix anything, not to turn this into something meaningful. Just live long enough to notice small things again. A light that hits differently. A moment that feels slightly softer than the rest. A breath that doesn’t feel as heavy as the one before. Collect these without thinking too much about them. Let them stay with you, even if they feel small and almost insignificant.

And maybe one day, without realizing when it happened, all of these small pieces will come together quietly. Not perfectly, not all at once, but enough to form something you can recognize. Something that looks like you. Something that feels like a life. And that is already more than enough.