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b-m-homes
37/M/New Zealand B. M. Homes writes of quiet rooms, faded seasons, and the soft ache of carrying on.
Poems1
Words193
He hadn’t expected the bend up ahead, though he’d rehearsed it. He’d imagined it a thousand ways, louder, bloodier, something with lights. Instead, it came quiet, whispered in the air. No one tells you how to make the bend. You do it by instinct, or inertia. You don’t choose to go on, you just do. One foot, then the next. An old glass of water. An unread book. An evening like any other. And so he slouched up the hill, searching for something, anything, to outweigh the nothingness that settled each day in his chest like dust. Hands rough and scarred from holding on too long. There, on that hill, he found himself. There was nothing. No reckoning. No collapse onto the earth. No borrowed epiphany. Only the faint and certain sense that something had happened, and he had already missed it. The grief was administrative, like forgetting to pay a bill and realising, too late, the lights had gone out. The days didn’t move forward, but sideways. These feelings once had edges, but even those dulled, like knives forgotten in drawers. Outside, the light kept changing, early, then late, then early again. And still he couldn’t remember the season. He kept his rooms clean. Order wasn’t peace, but it passed for it. He burned the candles, the ones meant for lighting tunnels ahead. He stopped saving anything for later. There was no later. He sometimes thought of calling someone, but didn’t know what he’d say. Not I’m sad. What was left wasn’t sharp enough to name. It was static, a background hum. He remembered a time he used to laugh, when mornings had meaning beyond coffee, and the soft panic of having nothing urgent to do. There were moments, brief, flickering, when it almost returned. A scent. A shadow. A dog barking somewhere down the hill. He would pause, and it would pass. So he wiped the counter, watched the sky lose colour, and blamed it on the stars. The dreams grew strange. Not dark, not surreal, just misplaced. Rooms he hadn’t seen in years. People who never quite turned around. Sometimes a figure was there, standing in the corner, saying nothing. Sometimes he held something, and woke with his hand still curled around nothing. He didn’t write them down. He didn’t want to make them real. Forgetting felt safer. He stopped checking the news. It all blurred, headlines, body counts, indignities performed in public. The world played on, soundless, on a screen he no longer recognised as his. There were fewer calls now, fewer invitations. People learned not to ask. He wasn’t cold, just absent. Not unkind, just unreachable. The plants in the living room leaned towards the light in ways that felt accusatory. He told himself he was conserving energy, that solitude was a choice, that quiet was its own kind of prayer. But deep down, he knew. He had not chosen this. He’d stayed too long in the space between, and the lock rusted shut behind him.
0
Nov 1, 2025
Nov 1, 2025 at 6:11 AM UTC
b-m-homes
The Space Between
He hadn’t expected the bend up ahead, though he’d rehearsed it. He’d imagined it a thousand ways, louder, bloodier, something with lights. Instead, it came quiet, whispered in the air. No one tells you how to make the bend. You do it by instinct, or inertia. You don’t choose to go on, you just do. One foot, then the next. An old glass of water. An unread book. An evening like any other. And so he slouched up the hill, searching for something, anything, to outweigh the nothingness that settled each day in his chest like dust. Hands rough and scarred from holding on too long. There, on that hill, he found himself. There was nothing. No reckoning. No collapse onto the earth. No borrowed epiphany. Only the faint and certain sense that something had happened, and he had already missed it. The grief was administrative, like forgetting to pay a bill and realising, too late, the lights had gone out. The days didn’t move forward, but sideways. These feelings once had edges, but even those dulled, like knives forgotten in drawers. Outside, the light kept changing, early, then late, then early again. And still he couldn’t remember the season. He kept his rooms clean. Order wasn’t peace, but it passed for it. He burned the candles, the ones meant for lighting tunnels ahead. He stopped saving anything for later. There was no later. He sometimes thought of calling someone, but didn’t know what he’d say. Not I’m sad. What was left wasn’t sharp enough to name. It was static, a background hum. He remembered a time he used to laugh, when mornings had meaning beyond coffee, and the soft panic of having nothing urgent to do. There were moments, brief, flickering, when it almost returned. A scent. A shadow. A dog barking somewhere down the hill. He would pause, and it would pass. So he wiped the counter, watched the sky lose colour, and blamed it on the stars. The dreams grew strange. Not dark, not surreal, just misplaced. Rooms he hadn’t seen in years. People who never quite turned around. Sometimes a figure was there, standing in the corner, saying nothing. Sometimes he held something, and woke with his hand still curled around nothing. He didn’t write them down. He didn’t want to make them real. Forgetting felt safer. He stopped checking the news. It all blurred, headlines, body counts, indignities performed in public. The world played on, soundless, on a screen he no longer recognised as his. There were fewer calls now, fewer invitations. People learned not to ask. He wasn’t cold, just absent. Not unkind, just unreachable. The plants in the living room leaned towards the light in ways that felt accusatory. He told himself he was conserving energy, that solitude was a choice, that quiet was its own kind of prayer. But deep down, he knew. He had not chosen this. He’d stayed too long in the space between, and the lock rusted shut behind him.
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