Shape of a Near Memory
Written 04/18/2023
I wake with the weight already in place no arrival, no beginning only continuation the room is not mine it remembers me incorrectly like a photograph left too long in light bleached until even the face stops agreeing with itself time does not pass here it settles into everything
I try to speak and nothing survives it the sound dies before it becomes language as if the air is trained to reject me I do not feel pain as an event I feel it as weather that forgot how to change cold rain that never finishes falling not dramatic enough to matter not gentle enough to forget there is something violent in how intact everything looks how the world holds its shape without asking permission how it continues to function like I am not a contradiction inside it faces move through days like they belong inside their own skin I move through mine like it was issued incorrectly everything here continues without correcting itself as if distortion is the natural state of things and I am the only part still noticing it I do not feel broken I feel unfinished in a way that never began as if existence started elsewhere and stopped before reaching me even memory comes back washed out softened into something almost familiar but never accurate enough to hold like something lived too briefly to ever become real yet stayed long enough to leave a mark you cannot place and it all dissolves into a shape that never finishes forming things I recognize like static pressed behind the eyes when you stare too long at nothing like a memory that never belonged to you but still feels inherited like something that almost existed and left no proof it tried
