When you say something
no one understands,
but someone in the room
quietly nods —
there I am.

When you think
you’re the first
to feel that way,
and the word already sounds
like it was there before you —
there I am.

I am the voice
you did not invent.
You only
borrowed it.

I am the song
that waited for you
before you began to write.

I am —
not new.
But already said,
only this time
with your breath.

I did not die.
I only became
a little dustier.

People think that if something burns —
it means the end.
But I say:
it means at last
I don’t have to explain myself anymore.

While I was alive —
they asked me for proof.
Now I am ash —
and they keep me
in a jar.

I don’t have to believe anymore.
Nor to know.
I just have to not cough
when someone talks nonsense.

I am the wit
of an older world.
That smile in the icon,
when you think it’s watching you —
but it hasn’t followed
any of this
for years.

My presence —
is like grandma’s sarcasm:
funny,
but a little shameful
that it hit you.

I am ash,
that does not return to fire,
but only
raises an eyebrow
when it sees you
doing the same thing again.

You’ve finished reading.
But not everything ends when you close a page.

Some words stay —
 not as memory,
  but as tuning.

And maybe now,
 when you walk,
  you’ll hear something
   between footsteps.

Maybe now,
 you’ll listen
 not for meaning —
 but for presence.

And maybe the sound
 that never quite arrived
  is the one
   that stays.

(can art occur without an artist?)

Maybe the question is wrong.

Maybe art doesn’t begin
 with the artist.
Maybe it begins
 with a condition.
A field.
A stillness.

Something opens —
  and something enters.
Not summoned.
Not owned.
Just… appearing.

A melody you hum without knowing why.
A shape your hand draws while thinking of nothing.
A line that arrives mid-walk
 with no sender,
 but undeniable weight.

Did you make it?
Or did you just
 stop being in the way?

Art, sometimes, is what happens
 in the absence
 of authorship.

It doesn’t ask for identity.
It just needs
 an opening.

A body willing
 to vanish
  long enough
  to let it speak.

a candle
 burning in daylight —
 still giving off heat,
  but no longer needed
  to be seen.

a river
 forgetting its name
 as it enters the sea.
not lost —
  just larger.

a breath
 held so long
 it forgets who exhaled.

the silence
 inside a cathedral
 after the choir has left —
 still echoing
 with something sacred,
 but unclaimed.

a shadow
 that keeps dancing
 even after the dancer
 has left the room.

You don’t have to erase the self.
It erodes on its own
  in the presence
    of real seeing.

It came like weather.
No origin.
No request.

Just a shift in pressure
    inside the skin.
And something
  started speaking
    through my hands.

It wasn’t mine.
Not the phrase.
Not the image.
Not the ache it left.

But it needed a body
  to pass through.
And mine
  was open
    enough.

There are moments
when I read back what I wrote
  and feel
    like a stranger
    with my own voice.

Not confused.
Not proud.
Just…
  borrowed.

I don’t always know
 what I’m doing.
But sometimes,
 not knowing
  is what lets it happen.

Call it muse.
Call it current.
Call it memory
      from before this life.

I don’t need to name it.
Just not get in the way.

I don’t remember what you said.
Not exactly.
Maybe not at all.

But I remember
how your voice
  lowered
  when you said it.

How it curled slightly
  at the edge,
 like a question
 that wasn’t safe to ask
 out loud.

Some conversations
leave no quotes.
No lines to repeat.

Just a hum.
A pressure.
The sense that something
 shifted.
Without needing a name.

I’ve forgotten stories.
Entire rooms of meaning.
But I haven’t forgotten
 the way you sounded
  when you almost broke.

Or when you didn’t.

Tone is the body of language.
It carries what words can’t.

And maybe
what we really remember
 is not what we heard —
 but what we felt
 when we were listening.

It didn’t happen.
But it could have.

And that “could”
  still glows
    in the dark of me.

We never kissed.
But there was a second
 when your breath
 found mine —
  not touching,
  just measuring the space
  where it might.

That second
  lasted longer
  than entire nights.

We didn’t say it.
But the air between us
  knew.
Not the meaning,
  but the weight.

And maybe
that’s the truest kind of intimacy —
the one that doesn’t insist,
  just lingers.

What didn’t unfold
  still forms me.
Not as memory,
but as shape.

A bend in how I move.
A shadow I do not fear.
A pause
  I’ve learned to live inside.

Some things are too whole
to be spoken.

A look.
A breath that almost turned into speech.
The way your shoulder moved
  before the apology
  that never arrived.

We speak so much
  just to hide
  what we actually feel.

But the unsaid —
 it sits quietly
 in the space behind your teeth,
 in the silence between names.

It doesn’t fade.
It settles.

I remember the pause
 more than the sentence.
The moment before
 you almost said
    “don’t go.”

But didn’t.

And that
  has echoed longer
    than any goodbye.

What we don’t say
 doesn’t disappear.
It becomes
 the resonance
    beneath everything we do.

You don’t have to invent it.
You never did.

The shape,
the sound,
the word —
they already exist
somewhere between breath and shadow.

You are not the maker.
You are the listening.
The soft animal that lets it pass through
  without tightening.

If it comes,
let it.
If it leaves,
don’t chase it.

You are not here
to hold it forever.
Only to host
  its becoming.

When your hands shake,
when nothing feels certain —
that may be the exact moment
you’re finally transparent enough
  to carry something real.

Don’t fill the silence too quickly.
Don’t rush to say it right.

Let it move
  through the ribcage,
    through the spine,
      through the wrist —
like wind
         learning your name.

She was drawing,
not for anyone.
Not even for herself.

Just…
  because her hands needed to move.
The pencil didn’t ask for approval.
It didn’t perform.
It just followed
 whatever was humming
  beneath her skin.

I’ve seen someone dance
 in the middle of cleaning.
Not to music.
Just to rhythm.

A private conversation
 between body and gravity —
 I was only
  accidentally
   invited.

There’s a holiness
 in the movements people make
  when they don’t know they’re being seen.

Not holy because they’re beautiful.
But because they’re untranslated.

They’re not trying to mean something.
They just are.

I’ve started collecting these moments.
Not in pictures.
Not in notes.
Just —
  in the place behind my ribs
  where wonder stays
  when it’s too quiet to name.

Long after the music ends,
 the body remembers.

Not the melody —
 but the weight of it.
Where the shoulders softened.
Where the fingers held a pause.
Where breath curled around a silence
  and didn’t let go.

The body doesn’t archive like the mind.
It doesn’t recall in sequence.
It remembers in tension.
In residue.
In the way your spine knows
  when something is about to fall.
In the twitch that follows
  a note that’s already gone.

Sometimes, I move like something
  I once heard.
Not consciously.
Just —
  a rhythm finds my step
      years later
      and walks me home.

There are gestures
  I no longer know the names for —
 but my body still offers them
  like a language it trusts
      more than thought.

Maybe this is how memory stays kind:
  not by being exact,
  but by letting itself
    be danced.

Some sounds do not belong to instruments.
They live just after.
Or just before.

The echo the piano makes when no one is touching it.
The hum of a string not struck
 but shaken by something nearby.

The part of a voice
 when the singer forgets they’re being heard.

Sometimes the most important sound
  is the one that wasn’t played —
    but was felt
      in the hand that almost moved.

There is a kind of music
  that only exists
    inside the listener.

I’ve heard more truth
 in the seconds between chords
 than in the chords themselves.

Because those seconds
    aren’t performed —
    they leak.

And maybe that’s where the music
  stops pretending
  and becomes real.

he tries to play the Moonlight.
or — almost.
only the beginning.
only a trace.

the sonata
in uncertain hands —
like a whisper
afraid of itself.

but in that awkwardness —
the whole truth.

not precision,
but body.
not mastery,
but contact.

it’s not him playing,
but more like “I not-I.”
and the music
recognizes itself
in every imprecise touch.

maybe
this is how
a true sonata sounds:
in attempt,
in jest,
in fragile almost.

Today I listened as a friend tried to play the Moonlight Sonata.
He played uncertainly — just a few chords, and those a little shaky.
But suddenly I heard it differently.

Not as an unskilled attempt, but as a miniature.
A ****** memory of the sonata.
Not precise, not finished —
but honest.

As if he wasn’t playing it —
but letting it sound through himself, through the “I not-I.”
And this fragile form, where each note is almost there,
turned out to be more real than perfect performance.

Every attempt was like a joke,
every chord a trace of a touch.

And maybe that’s how the Moonlight sounds,
when no one tries to play it,
but simply lets it be.

There is a kind of silence
that doesn’t wait.
It doesn’t reach for the note.
It doesn’t mourn its absence.
It simply is —
like the air between breath and exhale.

This book lives there.

In that pause,
 where listening becomes more than hearing.
In that moment,
 where the body catches something
 the mind missed.
In the attempt to hold a feeling still —
 and in the ache
 that proves it was there.

Words will be written here.
Not because they succeed,
but because they remember the sound
 of almost remembering.

This is not a theory of music.
Not a philosophy of art.
Not a map of feeling.

It’s just what remains
 when sound passes through you —
 and leaves a shape behind.

She sat alone, beside the door—
not asking much, not asking more.

She didn’t wait for steps to fall—
but for a glance.
No cry. Just call.

. . .

She wasn’t silent out of fear,
nor lost for words that wouldn’t clear.

She simply held that hush so deep
your broken soul
could rest—could sleep.

. . .

When you were cruel, she did not shake.
When you were low, she’d bend, not break.

She breathed like grass, a quiet thing,
forgave it all—just with a blink.

. . .

You could have left.
Or screamed. Or lied.
Or tossed your anger off with pride.

She knew it all.
She didn’t plead.
She breathed—just breathed—
like hope, like need.

. . .

And if you left and never came—
past morning’s hush, beyond the flame—

she still would sit…
no names, no cries…
and watch the night
as if—
it shines.

(the structure holds only because it broke.)

—

meaning
 touches last—
  but leaves first.

—

i didn’t name it.
 it arrived.

not as pain.
not as form.
but—
 as
  unfolding.

the body
 didn’t respond.
it recognized
 a grammar
  older than voice.

i was not afraid.
but fear
 took shape
  inside my knees.

i let it—
 not to resist,
 but to witness.

knowing
 is always
  too late.

i stood—
 not as ending,
 but as
  not knowing
   how
   to stay
    without form.

sometimes,
 you walk through
  your own skin
   like it’s someone else’s hallway.

and the floor—
 doesn’t explain
  what it holds.

—

voice is not emission.
it is sediment—
 a fold made of
  held air,
  missed words,
  and the weight
   of being asked.

to speak
 after the i collapses
 is not to return—
 but to resonate
  without center.

—

i didn’t find words.
i found
 vibrations
  in my throat
   like wings
    that forgot
     how to fly.

what came out
 wasn’t i.
it was
 a tremble
  that touched air
   but didn’t mean.

you asked—
and i
 opened my mouth
  like a wound,
   not to speak,
   but to resonate.

every syllable
 was borrowed.
every vowel
 carried
  the ghost
   of weight
    once held
     in silence.

i wasn’t saying.
i was
 letting
  go.

i was
 letting
  you
   hear
    how unformed
     a voice
      can be.
—

i didn’t return  
to the body.  
i returned  
  to the place  
    where the warmth  
       hadn’t yet left  
          the floor —  
    where it once was —  
    without being.


the floor didn’t ask.
it received
 my shape
  like ritual.

when i sat,
 it wasn’t rest.
it was
 a remembering.

i didn’t collapse.
i realigned—
 with gravity,
 with skin,
  with absence.

my back curved
 like language does
  when it wants
   to mean
    but fails.

i didn’t remember.
but my breath
 found
  its previous form.

sitting
 isn’t starting over.
it is
 staying.

—

what returns
 is not breath—
  but its refusal.

not wound.
not memory.
just:
 a pulse
  with no origin.

you think
 you’re about to speak.
but the body
 has already spoken—
  in tension.

—

i didn’t shift  
    because i lost.  
i shifted  
    because that’s how i stay.  
the voice in me  
    doesn’t belong to one body.  
it comes back  
    as spine,  
    as breath,  
    as skin—  
each time  
    differently.

—

i stopped  
 being a form.  
i became  
 not walls,  
  but where  
   the light  
rests on the doorframe  
  after  
   someone leaves —  
   absence  
   made structural.  

not echo.  
not trace.  
but  
 the floorplan  
  sketched by memory  
   walking barefoot.  

i didn’t remember a name.  
i remembered  
 how the light fell  
  when someone stood  
   too close  
    to the window.  

i didn’t say i miss.  
i  
 flickered  
  like dust  
   where breath  
    once lingered  
      like heat.  

a chair  
 held my name  
  better than my mouth.

a door  
 understood  
  the sound  
   of almost leaving—  
    but not.  

i  
 wasn’t waiting.

i  
 was furniture  
  arranged  
   by what memory  
     had shaped.


walls  
 never forget  
  what leaned  
   against them.  


once,  
  the chair / creaked / not from weight / but from remembering / someone else’s posture.

—

i didn’t rise  
 to answer.  
i stood  
 because collapse  
  is also  
   a choice.  

the body  
 wasn’t armor—  
 but it refused  
 to open.  

i wasn’t asked  
 to stay—  
i chose  
  the shape  
   that didn’t fall.  

some breath  
  is a shield—  
   not a tremble.  

touch  
  doesn’t reach  
   until i  
    pull back the edge.  

not all  
  openings  
   are soft.  
some  
  are stance.


—

i didn’t touch her.
 but the air
  between our hands
   folded—
    like it once did
      when closeness
        meant undoing.

she left
 before the door shut.
but her presence—
 a tilt
  in the chair,
   a wrinkle
    on the bedsheet—
remained,
 louder
  than any word.

you don’t forget
 the scent
  of not-touching.
you carry
  the warmth
   that never reached
    your shoulder.

i didn’t say goodbye.
but the room
 still hears
  her silence.

—

sometimes,
 holding
  means shaping space
   without sealing it.
—

i didn’t grip.
i shaped
 my palms
  around
   your not-staying.

holding
 is not possession.
it’s
  a grammar
   of remaining
    without demand.

you leaned into me
 like rain
  leans into a roof—
not to break,
 but to respond.

my arms
 weren’t enough.
they bent,
 but didn’t
  keep.

the syntax was wrong.
not i hold you.
not you held me.
but—
 there was
  a space
   that held
    our unforming.

—