hjthomas-poet

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[hj-thomas]

you told me through someone else

it was a casual mention - not even meant to sting. "did you hear?" they said, "she got married yesterday." and i smiled, or maybe flinched; same muscles.

your name entered the room like it owned the place; like it never left. it didn't.

i pictured you in some garden or registry hall, wearing light like a promise, your voice steady as you said yes to someone else, forever.

i remembered how we once spoke in futures - carelessly, as if the world owed us time. as if we were fast enough to outrun its slow unravelling.

you moved on, and i moved around. kept busy. made plans. filled the days with noise and reason.

I haven't thought of you for years but last night, when the house was dark, and the air too still to lie to, i felt the absence of your voice like a dropped call, still ringing in the bones.

[hj-thomas]

Shimmer

I've worn so many selves I no longer know which one to answer to. Some days, I am a voice that carries. Other days, the echo.

Each version of myself fits like a borrowed jacket - waterproof, but with someone else's name still stitched inside the collar.

In some rooms, I'm radiant. In others, apologetic. There are selves I miss and ones I try to un-know. There are reflections I recognise too late - already distorting me beyond recognition.

I used to believe in a hidden self: a clean stone beneath the current. Solid. Original. True.

But I've looked.

And what I find is always moving - not a stone, but the river. Not a truth, but a shimmer.

Maybe I survived by flowing,

glinting like a shaft of light that survived by changing shape.

A thousand faces shimmer in the water: all of them mine.