You wake to find me before you, as always.
The sunrise spills over the sea, draping itself across your shoulders.
It’s light catches in my eyes.
I listen to the birds as they glide,
their fleeting sonnets,
whistled in the morning air.
Your dreams still linger in these walls.
The carpet smells faintly of flowers.
You open the window,
but the sky refuses to move,
no cloud,
no breath of wind,
only a still frame of the past.
I hear the music you play,
see the art you bring to life,
your eyes fixed on the world,
on yourself,
on everything.
So your silence does not comfort me.
It only tells me I’ve failed.
That nothing has changed.
I’ve started sleeping again.
My hum keeps me company,
soft echoes of a place I can’t quite recall,
as pillars truncate
and pierce my skin.
They whisper of holding on,
of sinking slowly,
of the seabed where I rest,
heavy and unmoving.
There is mold on the carpet today.
Simple things,
bacteria.
I envy their certainty,
their hunger.
They never question their purpose or place.
They only live.
I rebuilt your house again,
the one with the painting.
The chairs are wrong,
but the painting,
the old painting,
is perfect.
The hum fills my chest,
my stomach,
my whole being.
If it’s guilt, I can’t feel it.
I tell myself the house is alive.
It is, isn’t it?
Every corner changes.
Every room grows.
The hum has become a roar now,
no longer a lullaby,
but a choir,
a storm of trees and mountains and magnets and walls and memories.
And I smile,
and I close my eyes,
and I listen,
and I whisper,
“I remember.”
“I remember.”
Hasn’t it always been here?
