Time folds, wet paper between my fingers. I slip through stacked years, each sheet a faint transparency: the same room, my outline blurred again.
What once rose like nave and spire shrinks to a stone I worry in my palm; power dims to a pinpoint spark, hopes curl sun-bleached, still warm enough to keep.
My body pulls like resin in noon heat, marrow thinning toward honey. I don’t break the surface; it breaks through me— shoulders touching in a crowd, eyes drifting elsewhere.
When they leave, the air swells. My words come back sharper, small blades I’d love to pocket. Memory is a splinter I dig for, trying to ease the sting without tearing the skin.
Thoughts rattle under the scab, tease it open, let old blood breathe. I search for the first cut and find only its offspring: pain rehearsing pain, none of it clean.
Some nights I give up rowing, let the river decide the route. Water fits every shape, then moves on.
Slip feels like eel-skin, like river held too loosely, like the quick heat of shame when only I saw the stumble.
I am the warp I travel, carrying bright shards of judgment. Slowly my hands relearn rest; they open, holding nothing but their own pulse.
If the mind could shed its husk of noise, if the jagged ice of memory would melt clear, I could stand in that water, glass-smooth, unscarred— one held breath.