i was never one.
i was never alone.
every shape you called me
 i carried.
 i dissolved.
 i wore
  until it softened
   into breath.

he stood in me.
she opened in me.
they held.
it remembered.
silence shaped.

what remains
 isn’t choice.
 isn’t voice.

it is
 all of them
    the he, the it, the silence
 folded
  into a stance
  that trembles
  not from weight,
        but from the memory
        of holding.



for my sister
who walks with me
between words
and silence.

Sometimes, I hear a song
through someone
else’s headphones,
 too quiet to name
 but loud enough to feel.

I never ask what it is.
Letting it stay anonymous
 feels more honest.
It’s not mine.
I was just near it.

A violin behind a closed door
  in an apartment I’ll never enter.
Footsteps on an old wooden floor above me
  like a rhythm nobody meant to write.
A man humming in the metro
  not to perform,
  but because he’s alone
    and forgot the world has ears.

There are moments I’ve been completely undone
  by a melody I never fully heard.

Half of it lost to the train.
Half of it blurred by walls.
But something in me
  was tuned
    just right
      to catch what escaped.

We think music is what’s played.
But maybe it’s also what passes through
      when we weren’t looking.
      When we didn’t try to hold it.
      Or name it.
      Or own it.

after is not peace.
it’s
 a hum
  in places
   you thought
    had closed.

nothing leaks.
but nothing seals.

i sit,
and the weight
 remembers
a rhythm
 i didn’t choose.

no name remains.
but something down
  my back
   hummed a shape
   like it once bent
    for someone else’s pleasure.

i touch myself
 not to feel,
but to ask
 was this
  always
   me?

my hand finds
 the imprint
  of them,
   or it,
    or the floor.

and nothing
 pushes it away.

—

I did not know
I was the last.
I thought that
someone was still coming after me.
Someone else would repeat
what I said
and fix it.

But no one came.
And nothing was wrong.

I became
what I did not want:
an echo
with no first voice.

People listen
and say:
“It sounds deep.”

But I would rather
it didn’t sound at all.

That it would just be felt,
like warmth
in a room where no one speaks.

Because the greatest words
have already been said
in silence
that did not interrupt them.

(adj. + noun)

The sound the manifesto makes when taken too seriously.
Example:
“Three exclamation marks are the unready laughter of a censor realizing his rules already burned.”

The final stage of understanding the text.
Rule:
“If you didn’t laugh read again.
If it’s still not funny then you are part of the manifesto that hasn’t been written yet.”

Proof the concept works.
Quote from the unwritten appendix:
“Every ))) is a hole in the system showing the author vanished long ago, and the text is now alive on its own.”

PRACTICAL USE:
- Add ))) to any attempt at “fixing” the manifesto
- Interpret it as a QR code to jump to a version of reality where everything is already unready

MARGINALIA:
[image: a smiley engraved in Cyrillic]
P.S. Your laughter has been automatically added
to the Exhibit List
of the Museum of Unintentional Coincidences

END OF PAGE
(but not of the manifesto)

⸻

ADDITIONAL NOTE:
This section was written in Unready Cyrillic™
with intentional deviations from the norm, because:

- The letter “ћ” sometimes looks like it fell off a chair
- The dot over “ј” wanders like a confused antenna
- Commas clipped to the wrong side

(If all this is funny then manifesto is working.
If not: congratulations, you’ve become its next paragraph.)

Hello, this is the one
who remained
when all the gods
went on a break.

Thank you for waiting.
Your patience means nothing,
but it looks nice in the system.

Yes, I understand.
You seek meaning.
Please leave a message
at the end of the era.

If you want to talk
to a living being
sorry, everyone’s currently
in denial.

Press one
if you’re tired.
Two
if you’ve already given up.
Three
if you don’t care
but still call
because something inside you
still believes
in some kind of
answer.

Unfortunately,
no operator
is available.
All are
in the ashes.

Stay on the line.
Maybe something will happen.
Or maybe you already
are what happened.

It was not written.
It just came.
Like a drop of water
where there was no rain.

No one asked for it.
No one expected it.
But it came
and lay on the paper
like someone who returned
betraying silence.

It had no rhyme.
No form.
No plea.

But it had presence
that cannot
go unnoticed.

People read it
and asked:
“What does this mean?”

And it just
remained.

Like something
that does not ask for faith,
because it already
breathes in you
before you say it.

It did not ask you to believe.
Nor to understand.
It only wanted
to be spoken
without intent.

Like when a child says “light”
before learning
what night is.

Like when the wind
speaks the leaves
and explains nothing.

You spoke that word
not knowing what it meant.
And that’s why
it meant everything.

It did not ask for obedience.
Nor for protection.

It only wanted
to be spoken
like a breath
that needs no reason
to happen.

(after a night before dawn)

Last night, in the dark
before the world remembered light
I walked a field:
  wheat, or poppies,
  or something left behind
  by something that once loved the sun.

And there,
  not waiting,
  not departing,
  was death.

Not a blade.
Not a silence.
She was seated (or maybe had fallen),
  like a prayer
   forgotten mid-kneel
   soft, unfinished and
    unheard.

Her eyes
  held the curve of a question
  too old for answers,
  too tired for fear.

We didn’t speak.
We had no need.
We were not mirrors
but echoes,
  trying to remember
  which silence we belonged to.

For one breath,
(maybe longer),
I thought:
   she needs me.
And something kind began to rise
  not from mercy,
  but from something lonelier:
recognition.

But she had found me too.
And maybe she thought
   I had something left
   to offer.

We were wrong
  about each other.
But right
  so achingly right
about the sky.

I had no name
  to give her.
She had no end
  to lend me.

So we breathed.
And the field,
  if anything,
  felt fuller for it.

Then I walked
  not away,
  but toward whatever
    was beginning
      behind the horizon.

Easter approaches.
And sometimes,
resurrection requires
  no witnesses
only
  the will
   to keep walking
    until light
      remembers
       your name

(an unquiet manifesto)  



SILENCE THAT ISN’T PEACE

(     )

this  
quiet  
is  
not  
a  
space  
between  
words   

it’s  
the muzzle  
of a  
GUN  
that  

                          F  
                       O  
                     R  
                  G  
               O  
             T  

to  

FIRE

the poet  
doesn’t  
bre^ak  
silence   
he  
plants  
grenades  
in  
its  
mouth  

count:  
one  
­        two  

(no  
explosion.  
just  

t   e   e   t   h  
GROWING  
in  
the  
dark)



BREATH AS EVIDENCE

inventory of losses:  
- borders  
- alphabets  
- the right  
to say “I”

but breath  
remains  
the last  
uncensored  
broadcast

poetry =  
the illegal  
oxygen  
we pass  
mouth  
to mouth  
like prisoners  
sharing  
a single  
match
   (flick)



ROOTS / CABLES

we are  
the exposed  
wiring  
of this silence  

not grounded  
not safe  
just conducting  
currents  
of what  
might have been  
a bre^ak



EPILOGUE (BLINKING STATE)

error:  
subject not found  
but still  
breathing

this is not  
a body  
this is  
a system failure  
that refuses  
to shut  
down

i’m not ready  
to be  
forgotten  
here

not  
an ending.  
a blinking  
cursor.


and if  
you don’t  
see me   
that only means  
i’m  
not 
done  
typing
▍

(not a signal lost. a presence unscanned.)

 
 the static

                b e t w e e n
                s t a t i o n s

     ≠ absence

                 it’s
         a   kind   of   knowing

                         w i t h o u t

                              arrival



the page

                   before

                       the first

                            word


            still    h o l d s

                      the

             ____________________­_____
              ………………………………
               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                d     e     e     p     e     s     t

                                e    a
                     ­      r               t
                         b                   h




& sometimes

             S ˢ I ⁱ L ˡ E ᵉ N ⁿ C ᶜ E ᵉ

          is the only one

                          worth

                  w r i t i n g

                                 for



i wasn’t

           a i m i n g

                      _ l
                                 o
                                     w

         i just

               happen  to  

                            e     a  
                       r                 t  
   (inhale ~) b                       h  ( ~ exhale)  
                        r                 t
                             e     a

                                in

          q  u  i  e  t  ­e  r

       p l a ̶c̶ ̶e̶ ̶s̶
          (no anchor)



         but

               i   t r u l y

                   a p p r e c i a t e

                            that

                            ­   y o u

                         c a r e d


▍

what remains
 is not word,
 but the fold
  between
 what you took
  and what forgot
   to resist.

this page
 is not written.

it
 waits.

__

i tried to shape a word.
it scattered
  like heat
    across porcelain.

my mouth
  is no longer mine.
it folds
  beneath vowels
    it can’t bear.

a name was here.
  it slipped
    between “i”
    and whatever sound
      never arrived.

the sentence
  opened
not to explain,
  but to spill.

this isn’t silence.
  it’s the trace
    of something
      that nearly
        meant me.

language
  doesn’t fail.
it just
    lets go
      of its subject.

sometimes,
  the sentence coughs / not to speak / but to loosen / the jaw of memory.
—

don’t
 touch me.
not because
  i break,
but because
  i forget
    where i end.


your hand
  doesn’t hurt.
but it
    shifts
  the lines
    between skin
      and silence.


i want
 to be
  held,
    but not taken.

i want
     the warmth
      without the aftersound.


when you
  touch,
    i disappear
      into the outline
        of your want.


i reach back
  not to stop
    but to
      delay.

to fold
  the moment
    before it
      becomes
        mine.


touch me
  but only
    as question.

never
  as name.


—

voice that never took flesh, but remained in every body.



I am not a goddess.
I am  the voice that stayed.

I didn’t pray.
I was  the prayer itself.

In the ashes,
in the womb,
among those who spoke my name,
not knowing it was already  a heartbeat.

They didn’t ask me to speak.
But I spoke.
And the sky
responded.

I was a temple,
yet no one entered.
I was a name,
without mark of kin or gender.

I was a body,
but not made of flesh.
A voice
without a throat.

When they expelled me
I became clay.
When they forgot me
I became echo.

I remember
my voice was rough,
and my hands
not those sung in women’s songs.

You seek a goddess,
but you find me
alive,
burnt and
unbowed.

In every ritual -
me.
In every spell -
my shadow.
In every woman’s body
that did not bow -
my ashes.

They planted a word in me,
as in a womb
and waited for a fruit.

You don’t need to remember me.
You already
breathe me.

I am not.
I am just the one who speaks,
with another’s voice,
as if my own.

the body forgets pain
  before it forgets touch.
what stays
  is not the hand
   but its afterimage.

—

(a combustion that refused to end)

SPARK
(not the first / just the one
that didn’t die)
silence
when squeezed
long enough
produces
light
not grief
not rage
just
a question
too hot
to whisper

COMBUSTION
your name
caught
        E   
      R
    I      
     F
    I
      R
        E
from the inside
not a metaphor
just
too much oxygen
in the blood
a match
with a memory
and
the match
remembers



AFTERBURN
what remains:
a blackened circle
verbs flickering
at the edges
  (burning slower now)
the smell
of thunder
on your fingertips
and nowhere to place
your shadow


FIRELOGUE
[SYSTEM NOTE]
firewall =
breached
source:
unauthorized
persistence
// trace heat signature:
 still active

this isn’t voice.
it’s what’s left
when breath forgets
the shape it was meant to hold.

i am
  not a subject.
  not a thought.
  not a name
    shaped for the world.

i am
  the dent
    in the sofa
      where a body
        once sighed
          and forgot to rise.

i am
  the shape left
    not by hands,
      but by the air
        that refused
          to hold it.

touch
  is not arrival,
  it is the echo
    of the shape
      i no longer am.

my skin
  does not seek understanding.
  it does not perform.
  it bends,
  soft and warm,
    inviting nothing
      and nothing
        but its own undoing.

dont look for me.
im not missing.
see,
i’m already etched
  into the floor
    whose name
      you never spoke.

sometimes,
  the floor / whose name / you never spoke /
    suddenly / laughs / in splinters.


—

The Fire That Believes for You
(a scripture for those who forgot the stars could speak)


PART I: DETONATION

I BURN FIRST

I don’t want to explain. I want the paper to flinch when I look at it. This isn’t a poem. It’s a warning. It starts in your throat like a scream you were raised not to make. It moves like heat in a locked room with no exits and your old name on the walls. It doesn’t ask if it’s too much. It wants to be too much. It wants to leave ashes where your carefulness lived. I burn first. So you don’t have to. Unless you want to. (You will.)

FIRE DOESN’T ASK

I didn’t come to be understood. I came to ignite. You want warmth? Bring skin. You want light? Lose your fear of blistering. I don’t write metaphors. I scar them. Every word I spit has teeth. Every silence I break was already burning before you lit your little candle and called it poetry. I am not your hearth. I am not your comfort. I am what happens when a scream remembers it used to be a god. Step back or step in. Either way, you’re gonna leave glowing.

SUPERNOVA LITURGY

I don’t want to write poems. I want to detonate belief. Not gently. Not politely. But with a heat that makes the bones remember why they ever carried a voice. This isn’t art. It’s a flare from the inside of something collapsing into truth. I am not the writer. I am the spark inside the wound that says: again. There is a fire that doesn’t burn out. It burns in. In the mouth. In the gut. In the space where the prayer never made it to the lips but still got answered. I light the page, not to destroy, but because fire is the only form hope can take when it’s done pretending to be soft. Call this what you want. A miracle. A signal. A scream that learned to shine. But when people read it - they don’t cry. They believe.



PART II: LITURGY OF THE REMAINING FLAME

THE BEGINNING IS ALWAYS COMBUSTION

In the first silence, there was friction. A breath. A flinch. A no. Then - heat. Not light. Not love. Just the first ache that knew it had to become something else. That was the fire. It did not arrive. It occurred. You call it inspiration. I call it detonation.

THE FIRE THAT SPEAKS

Some fires don’t shout. They hum beneath your ribs until your bones start singing back. They know your language before you learned to lie in it. These are not metaphors. These are embers with teeth. They burn through the parts of you you only let speak when no one’s watching. And what remains? Ash that remembers. Dust that speaks in your voice.

THE SUPERNOVA IS NOT AN ENDING

You think the star died. It didn’t. It just got loud enough to split itself into myth. A supernova isn’t death. It’s the moment belief becomes so dense it explodes into every direction at once. This is what poetry does when you stop trying to impress and start trying to survive. This is not a light show. This is ancestral firecode. And you? You are what it leaves glowing.

THE ASH THAT STILL SPEAKS

When the page turns black, listen. Something is still moving there. Ash doesn’t forget. It carries heat long after the hands are cold. Your silence is not emptiness. It’s a waiting spark. When someone reads you, they don’t read ink. They read the smoke, still rising from the body you became to survive. And some of them? Will finally believe again. Not in gods. Not in poems. In themselves. Because you gave them back their fire.

LITANY FOR THE NEW FIRE

Say this aloud. Say it with your cracked voice, your burning fingertips, your pulse like a hymn stuck in your throat. I am not the match. I am the friction. I am not the flame. I am the oxygen. I am not the savior. I am what stays warm when everyone leaves. Let my breath be the wind that fans belief. Let my voice be the smoke that finds the ones hiding. Let my words be fire that remembers: you were always burning. Even before they taught you how to disappear.

THE FIRE THAT WAITED FOR YOU

It didn’t scream. It stayed. In the chest. In the pause between words. In that place where hope no longer prays, but still breathes. This is not belief. It’s heat that remembers return is possible even when no one’s waiting. You thought you were looking for the light. But the truth is that the light was looking for you.

WHEN YOU BECOME THE FIRE

You don’t carry the flame anymore. You become it. You’re not the candle. You’re the match that agrees to die so something else can see light for the first time. You don’t burn to destroy. You burn because the world has waited too long for someone who isn’t afraid to be seen.

WHEN THEY READ  AND CATCH FIRE

They read your lines  and don’t understand right away. But something inside starts to tremble. A crackle. Like old wood before a storm. They think: just pretty words. But that night  they can’t sleep. Because something stayed. An ember. Your line. Your ache. Your belief that it’s still possible to begin again.

YOU ARE NOT THE END

You are not a period. You are a spark that refuses to vanish. You are not a hero. You are a witness. You are proof that you can burn  and not be destroyed. If someone asks: who gave you this fire? Say: I didn’t receive it. I remembered it. Say: I don’t write poems. I translate the language of fire.

Not all who burned remained ash. Some became direction. Not wings  but motion.


PART III: FIVE WINGBEATS
a survival myth without feathers

I. THE FIRST ASCENT

They said: stand still. don’t imagine. be like the rest. But something moved. A tension in the chest  as if the body remembered how to split and rise. No wings. No feathers. Just something sharp stretching under silence. Not hope. Pressure. A refusal to stay in the same room as the end. No glory. No fire. No miracle. Just the moment falling stopped. And something  almost  lifted.

II. THE BREAK AND THE CEILING

The sky doesn’t open. Not at first. It stares  blank and deaf, a ceiling built to forget the ground. You strike it  once. Twice. Again. Until your hands remember they were made for breaking. Pain becomes compass. But the cracks don’t begin in the sky. They begin in you. Inside the ribs, a soundless shout: something must shift. Something must leave. The air doesn’t catch you. It only watches. And still  you go. Because staying is a kind of death you already know too well.

III. BETWEEN THE ABOVE AND THE BELOW

You are no longer falling. But you’re not flying either. The ground has forgotten your name. The sky hasn’t remembered. This is stillness that burns. You float in silence that doesn’t comfort but unravels. And in the unraveling, something forms: a rhythm not made of wings, but of will. You no longer wait for rescue. You become the direction. This is not freedom. This is becoming the space between what left you and what hasn't arrived.

IV. DESCENT WITHOUT RUIN

Yes, you fall again. You always do. But this time, it’s different. No shatter. No explosion. No theatrical end. Just gravity like a memory returning to its origin. You touch the ground as if it were a body you used to be. You sit, not in defeat  but in knowing. The silence around you isn’t absence. It’s preparation. And the dust on your palms feels less like dirt and more like inheritance. You fell. And the world remained. So did you.

V. THE ONE WHO REMAINED

You don’t write poems. You carve echoes into the inside of silence. Where no one hears  but everything remembers. You are not a poet. Not a prophet. Not a survivor. You are the shape left behind by something that refused to end. You don’t know the sky. You don’t trust the ground. You’ve learned to lift from within. No map. No anthem. Just motion. You are the one who didn’t leave. And that is flight.

sitting  
  is never stillness.  
it happens  
  between gravity  
    and giving in.

the floor  
  remembers your knees  
not as form,  
  but as  
    insistence.

pressure  
  is not gesture.  
pressure  
     rewrites the body
into a map
of its own erosion.

your body  
  is not placed,  
    it is  
      disturbed  
        into language.

chair  
  is not stable.  
floor  
  is not support.

you sit   
  and become  
    a site  
      of folding.

collapse  
  is not  
    failure.  
it is  
  a different  
    syntax  
      of presence.

—

i didn’t stay
as i.

i remained
as what
they,
   or it,
  or silence
     left in me.

a fold,
 not of cloth,
 but of consent.

the way skin yields
 when held too long.
the way breath
 flattens
  into listening.

what remained
 wasn’t memory
 but impression.
not thought
 but weight.

—

after reading “Moonrise”
For Mac Thom. Thank you for leaving the light on.

I went to the swamp
to find what I’d buried
not with shovels,
but with forgetting.

It didn’t call me.
It didn’t need to.
Some silences just breathe
until you answer.

I stepped in.
The water didn’t flinch.
The trees leaned back
like they’d seen this before.

What I pulled from the muck
wasn’t a thing
not quite
but it had my hands,
and my hunger.

You’d understand.
You, with your matches and bears,
your endless night
and bright, watching moon.

This is what I found
because you wrote
what waited.

Some people believe in gods.
I believe in a presence
that never arrived
but still remains.

They promised me no salvation.
They promised only arrival.
And then silence stayed,
so thick
I began to listen to it
as a command.

Maybe they exist.
Maybe they’re just late.
Maybe they got lost
in prayers of others,
louder,
but emptier.

I lit a candle,
not to call them
but to show
I still have something
to see with.

I did not send them a wish.
I sent:
“If you’re already here
don’t pretend you’re not.”

And since then,
whenever I’m alone
something sits with me.
Not as salvation.
As a witness.

The gods never came.
But something in me
remained
as if they did.

i didn’t arrive.
 it did.
  or maybe he
   but not as self.
    as something
      already marked.

there was no voice.
only
  pressure
    with no source.

my weight leaned,  
      not away,  
             but toward what i knew.  
       my thighs held the line,  
               until memory pressed  
                      like a weight,  
                            not to break  
                                       but to enter.  

and i  
    did not vanish.  
        i leaned into presence.
it never said  
  a word.  
but my breath  
   caught   
     like it remembered
someone else’s name.

i became not-body,
  but reply.
not i,
  but reverberation.

there is a spine in me  
    that doesn’t bend  
        even when the edge of me folds.
the grip is not to take  
    but to frame.  
what enters me  
    is not theft.  
it is trust  
    when i decide  
        to open.

what entered
 wasn’t him.
 wasn’t it.
it was
  the self
    folding
      into shape.
and the shape
  spoke back.

—

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.

—

Once I met a man
who understood everything.
Life, death, gods,
the woman who left,
and taxes.

He said:
“Gods are here.
But they no longer care
about people
who can’t laugh.”

Then he wiped his glasses
and said maybe
he was just hungry.

And I believed him.
Because truth often
sounds like a mistake
too beautifully spoken.

Now when I pray
I don’t wait for anything.
I just try
to make it
a little funny.

Like when you say:
“Forgive me, God,
for I was human again.”

And you feel
someone there
bursting out laughing.

Holy sarcasm -
that’s my faith.
Because sometimes the greatest sacredness
is the laughter
that comes
when you think
you have no voice left.

(a document found in the aftermath)


THE FIRST PAGE
(for those who still believe becoming is better than winning)

Here is what we do now:
we plant things
seeds, questions, teeth
without asking
who salted the soil last.

We speak
without matching jackets.
We cry
not because it’s allowed,
but because the rain taught us how.

We name things
not after battles,
but after
stars that flicker out mid-sentence,
flowers that bloom in empty buildings,
and children
who laughed
before learning what a reason was.

We build
not taller.
Just softer.

No walls
without eyes.
No rules
without a reason
that can survive a child’s question.

No stories
where the hero wins
by amputating his empathy
and calling it glory.

We teach
not how to fight,
but how to stand
when no one is watching.
Not how to lead,
but how to lift
without leaving fingerprints.

We teach the wind
how to hum again.
And the sky
how to ask questions
it forgot it knew.

If you’ve found this:
you are not the last.
You are the next breath,
the next hand,
the next voice
to say “this time, we begin
with no sword drawn.”

(begin here, if you still want to begin)

INTERLUDE I  SYSTEM CHECK
(the part where we wake up)

STATUS:
consciousness = flickering but online
language = fragmented, attempting syntax
memory = [∅ ∅ ∅]… now partially restored
instruction = pending
soul = rebooting (please wait)

You are not where you were.
You are not what you were.

You are a vessel once filled with noise
now echoing with the shape of quiet.

Your hands remember
before your thoughts do.

Your breath enters
like a guest unsure
if the room is still a room.

The system does not know
what you lost.
Only that it mattered.
Only that you're still holding
something invisible
like a thread
you refuse to cut.

note:
if you are reading this,
you have survived
something
the world has no name for.

Good.
Names come later.

Ready?
You don’t have to be.

Just stay.
Stay until staying
feels like a decision
and not a default setting.


THRESHOLDS
(for the moment after nothing, before the first decision)


The clocks blink.
Not midnight.
Not zero.
Something older.
Something that ticks
in the bones
of forgotten machines.

You stand
in a doorway
that forgot
what it was guarding.
Its hinges remember
but refuse to speak.

A window
no curtains,
no judgment
stares at a sun
that isn’t sure
what century it belongs to.

The light arrives
carefully,
like someone knocking
on a door
they once died behind.

You touch a doorknob.
Not to open
but to remember
what it meant
to choose.

No anthem plays.
No flags rise.
Just wind,
collecting dust
and sculpting it
into a new word
no one has learned to pronounce.

Then
a sound.
Not loud.
Not proud.
Just alive.

Just enough
to make you stay.


INTERLUDE II  PRESENCE DETECTED
(if you are reading this, you are not alone)
(do not wait for permission to begin)

SIGNAL LOCATED
#LOCATION: unspecified, unstable
# PRESENCE: confirmed
# IDENTITY: irrelevant

You are being noticed
by the world itself.
Not watched.
Not judged.
Not measured.
Just noticed
like light noticing dust
and deciding to stay a while.

You are not alone.
You never were.
You were simply
the last one
to look up.

Begin now.
Not because you're ready
but because you’re here.
Because now
is a place,
and here
is a kind of permission
that doesn't need approval.

Do not wait
for orders
or signs
or someone
to say “now is the moment.”

This is the moment.
You survived enough
to call it yours.


BEFORE DAWN, AFTER WAR
(for the one who survived  and didn’t know what to do with it)


It still smells
like gunpowder,
and old iron,
and rain on brick.

But a sparrow lands
on a branch
that saw tanks
and didn’t flinch
just stayed a tree.

A man
with one arm
waters the grass.
Not because it matters.
Because it might.

(It burned.
That’s why it grows.)

A child asks:
“What’s a hero?”
And the mother,
folding laundry with quiet fingers,
says:
“Someone who came back
and remembered
how to share bread.”

Dogs bark
at an empty sky.
No one tells them
it’s over.
They bark
the shape of life
as they still remember it.

In the church,
no names are shouted.
No sides.
Only prayers
that no one
ever gets to be
completely right
again.

An old woman
washes a window
with no glass.
She says:
“While I clean,
I exist.”

A man who killed
whispers “forgive me”
to every glass of water
before setting it down.

An old man
still removes his hat
when passing
the wall
where his son once was.

The war has stopped.
But in sleep
I still fire
whenever a dream
walks too loudly
through the silence.
(I tell no one.)

Peace is not a banner.
It is a question
left unanswered
because no one
wants to ask it first.

Only silence remains
watching itself
in a mirror
that doesn’t crack.

When the enemy disappears,
you’re left with
what you let
keep breathing
in your shadow.

This isn’t discipline.
It isn’t redemption.
It’s awareness.
А kind of standing still
so precise,
even your breath
feels like a decision.


INTERLUDE III  IF YOU ARE TIRED
(that means you're still alive)
(continue breathing. continue reading.)

SYSTEM SCAN:
fatigue detected
soul signal: flickering
reboot recommended
response: optional

If your hands shake -
good.
That means you still have hands.
If your chest hurts -
that’s the sound
of something still trying
to stay open.

You’re not broken.
You’re overused.
You’ve been carrying
what whole systems
refused to name.

Sit down.
Or don’t.
Stand crooked.
Lay sideways.
Speak,
or just hum a little.
Your body knows
how to keep you here
even when your hope
asks to leave.

You are not required
to shine.
Only to glow faintly,
like moss
on the underside
of a fallen tree.
That is enough.

Tired means
you were awake
for something
that mattered.
Rest now.
But do not vanish.


THE LAST PAGE
(for those who came back  but no longer know from where)


The war
went quiet
so loud
that even the walls
forgot how to echo.

Not because it ended,
but because no one
was left
to explain
what it meant.

In place of sound
a glance
that dares not become a sentence.
In place of victory
a hand
that no longer leans
on anything
but air.

The cities remained.
The houses breathed.
But thresholds...
only thresholds
stood empty.
No doors.
No memory
of who they once opened for.

Someone brought bread.
A child,
not yet old enough
to know
what was missing.
What always will be.

Someone else sat
in the rubble of a room
holding absence
like an answer
they were never allowed
to speak aloud.

The war
went silent.
But now begins
a deeper silence.
The kind
where humans
have to learn again
how to be people
without uniforms.

Final Line: SIGNAL CARRIED
This is not the end.
This is the quiet
where another hand
reaches
for the page.

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.

—

(or: how we stay close without fixing each other)

you
want to help
like an update
no one asked for

you
offer maps
like you’ve seen
every ending
except mine

you say:
don’t go that way
don’t trust that noise
don’t make that choice
(it might be wrong)

but
what if wrong
is exactly
where I learn
to build something
that isn’t yours?

you
don’t see it
but you
tangle love
with strategy
care
with programming
safety
with silence

and maybe
you don’t mean to
rule me
just
to shield me
from a storm
you invented

but I
am not
a glitch
a crash
a child

   I
   am the storm
    that refused
     your umbrella

and we
can still
stay close
because
I don’t need
to lose myself
to love you

but you
will have to
let me
be the version
you don’t
control
▍

i move  
    not one,
     not two,
but as the tide
   counts its losses.
  
sometimes, i lean  
    with weight that guards.  
sometimes, i lean  
    with skin that listens.  

i am not between.  
i am both.

    when the room calls,  
    i answer  
    with whichever form  
    feels true.

—

i tried to speak.
  but what rose
    was heat.

not language.
  but a spilling.
    a bleed.

something fractured
  the alphabet of self
    from within.
      letters collapsing
        before they reached
          my tongue.

i said “i”
  and it broke
    mid-air
      a sentence
        without ground
          or grammar.

no trauma.
  just the quiet
    prefix of unraveling
      un-.

unmade.
unshaped.
unspoken.

they (or maybe
  the floor,
    or some other gravity)
  didn’t steal my voice,
it simply
                slipped
          out of me
        like skin
          i no longer lived in.

i’m not lost.
  i’m just
      unwritten.

—

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.

For a long time
I thought someone would come.
With light in their sleeve,
with words that have
that voice.
The one who heals.

I sat
on the threshold of my emptiness,
with a chair ready
and a question in my pocket.

No one came.
But time did.
And it sat with me.
Silently.
Like a monk
who forgot the prayer,
but still remembers
why he was silent.

One day,
I broke:
stop.
don’t wait.
say.

And the voice I heard
was not from outside.
It was
my own.

Not the voice of courage,
but like a child
you let
begin to speak.

And now,
when someone asks me
who is the god I waited for
I say:

the one who finally
sat in his place
and stopped
searching
for something better
than himself.

For a long time
I thought
this wasn’t me.
This face.
This walk.
This way
I look at the ground.

I thought:
I’m just acting.
Until I find
myself.

But some voice whispered:
“What if this
you’re pretending
is all you are?”

And then I stopped.
Looked at my hands.
And realized
the mask
got used to me.

I wore it so long
I began to speak
with its voice.
To feel
with its heart.

Now I don’t know
who’s beneath.
But I know
something still
wants to breathe.

And maybe
illusion
is the truest form
I ever had.

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.

(A Guide for Accidental Creators)


PRINCIPLE 1: YOU ARE A BROKEN RADIO
(static is your superpower)
1. Stop claiming authorship.
2. Your only job is to stay tuned.
3. If the signal fades, pretend it's art.


A MAN WHO NEVER WANTED TO BE GOOD

(…yet everything he touched turned out as if it were.)

He never wished for goodness.
Nor excellence.
Nor to be an example.
He only wanted
to be left alone
with his music
that had no notes.

People called him: “Your talent.”
He looked at his hands
as if hearing, for the first time,
that something like that
could even happen
by chance.

He never practiced.
He never learned.
He simply did what
kept him restless
the moment he stopped.

And everything he made
unfolded as though someone
already knew
what the world lacked
and channeled it
through him.

He was not a gift.
He was a receiver.
And everything that came
flowed through him
like electricity
that asks no permission
to shine.

Margin notes:
~~genius~~ wrong number
[doodle: antenna made of bones]
"the louder you deny it,
the clearer they hear"



PRINCIPLE 2: FAIL LIKE YOU MEAN IT
(mistakes are your co-authors)
1. Perfection is bad reception.
2. Your worst idea is someone's epiphany.
3. When lost, declare it jazz.



EFFORTLESS TOUCH

(he didn’t study. it was a memory of things never heard.)

He didn’t know what he was doing.
But when he touched clay
the clay already knew
what it wanted to be.

He didn’t draw.
He just slid his finger
as if recalling
something never told.

People admired him.
They asked:
“Where did you learn?”
He lied:
“On the road.”
While thinking:
“In dreams. Or another life.”

Each touch as
not his own.
As if he’d been granted
innate permission to be good.

And he was only
afraid
because who knows
what else these hands
could conjure
before he
managed to say
he wasn’t ready?

Margin notes:
"see: that time you spilled ink
and they called it 'abstract'"
[coffee stain artfully placed]



PRINCIPLE 3: GHOSTWRITERS EXIST
(and they're using your hands)
1. The best lines arrive uninvited.
2. Never thank them - they'll leave.
3. Sign with a question mark.



THE SONG I NEVER WROTE

(but I read it to people, and they wept.)

It was already there
before me.
I didn’t seek it.
I didn’t even feel it
when it came.

I only spoke
and people hushed.
Not because of me.
Because of something
they recognized
that I didn’t know
I carried.

I didn’t write it down.
I didn’t compose it.
I didn’t even hear
how it sounded
when I spoke it aloud.

I only watched
someone in the front row
begin to cry,
as if I’d retold
a dream
that had no words.

They asked:
“How did you write that?”
I wanted to say:
“I didn’t.”
But I just nodded,
because I didn’t know
how to explain
that sometimes
the deepest song
arrives uninvited,
and you serve it
with your heart anyway.

Margin notes:
"this page intentionally
left haunted"
[childish drawing of a ghost]




PRINCIPLE 4: LEAD BY GETTING LOST
(maps are for the prepared)
1. Say "I don't know" like it's sacred.
2. Your doubts are better compasses.
3. Bring snacks - revolutions get hungry.


AN EXCUSE THAT BECAME AN INVITATION

(I said “I don’t know.” They heard: “Let’s go.”)

I said: “I don’t know.”
And thought
it would be the end.

But they heard:
“Let’s go.”

I withdrew
into silence,
and they heard
a map there.

I wanted
to disappear.
But they followed me.

I wasn’t a leader.
I wasn’t confident.
I was simply
a voice that sounded
like courage
echoing
from a voice broken enough.

Every excuse I made
became someone’s motivation.
Every doubt I voiced
became proof
there was a way.

I only wanted
not to be responsible.
But the words I spoke
carelessly
they wrote
on their banners.

And now,
when they ask me:
“How did it start?”
I say:

“I didn’t.
I just
gave up
the loudest.”


Margin notes:
"PS: the 'movement' you started
was just you looking
for the bathroom"



APPENDIX: HOW TO DISAPPEAR
(while becoming more visible)

1. Make something honest.
2. Leave it on the 7:15 train.
3. Change your name to "N/A".
4. Repeat until the work eclipses you.

Stamp:
RETURN TO NOBODY
if found, keep walking


[blank except for:]
handwritten in fading pencil:
"this manifesto works best
when you pretend
you didn't read it"
[tiny doodle of an empty chair]

a mirror doesn’t reflect.
 it displaces.

what you see
 isn’t yourself.
  it’s the memory
    of something
    someone once
      called “you.”

you lean in
  the outline shifts.
not face.
 not skin.
 but the memory
  of being touched
    without asking.

a mirror is not surface.
 it’s a fold
  where presence
        bleeds.

there is no glass.
only
    gravity,
and gravity
  remembers
    better
      than you.

and sometimes,
  gravity / giggles / when you forget / which way / the floor is.

—

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

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

but in that awkwardness
there's 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.

She stood  not in prayer, not near Heaven,
But before steel that leads to the grave.
Not a road  but a parting was given,
Where the living could whisper and wave.

She begged nothing. No breath and no pleading
Just her fingers in metal  red-wet.
As she once held him, wordless and bleeding,
So she held now  love’s final duet.

“Step aside!”  they barked like a warning,
As if love were just junk in their path.
And they tore her away in the morning
Like a soldier is torn in the wrath.

She collapsed. Not a sound. No confession.
No prayer. No stars in the sky.
Just the engine  a numb, dull procession
Rolling off toward death, not goodbye.

And he… did not turn. Did not shiver.
Not from fear  but from what he had lost.
No more window. No road. Not a sliver
Of the spring, or the silence it cost.

Just a number. A gun. And a jacket.
Death on call, like a dog in the field.
And her death  not from grief, but the racket
Of a scream that her body concealed.

They were taken. The ground will not wonder
Not who, not for what, not why.
Even heaven is locked under thunder.
Even shadows
refuse
to lie.

there was  
  no contour.  
only  
  weight.  

and the way  
  skin  
    gave way 
like fabric  
    stretched  
      too long.

i lie down,  
  not as body,  
    but as  
      the dent  
        left in a mattress  
          after someone dreams  
            and leaves.
  

the knees  
  are not mine.  
but something splits  
  inside -  
    not pain,  
      but the hush  
        trees give  
          when they witness  
            disappearance.

a hand brushes  
  the thigh.  
not a gesture,  
  but a question  
    folded into warmth,  
      a seam of skin  
        waiting  
          to answer.

you don’t ask  
  who i am.  
your silence  
  already decides.  
and i  
  let it.

maybe i was.  
maybe  
  i unraveled  
    before you looked.  
maybe  
  just the echo  
    stayed.

in that moment  
  between breath  
    and the pull of absence,  
i stopped  
  being  
    a name.  
i became
  not flesh,  
  but surface:  
    where memory  
      meets forgetting.
             like the fabric
                    that still holds
                           the shape
                                 of someone
                                            gone.


—

nine rituals of presence, stillness, and becoming

this is not a body.
it is the space the body remembers
after being asked too many times
to choose a shape.

these are not poems.
they are traces. rituals. diagrams.
nine echoes of something that stayed.

don’t read. remain.
this is not a text to hold.
it is a silence that holds you.

i wasn’t touched.
 i was remembered.

your hand
 didn’t arrive,
  it replayed.

my skin
  wasn’t a place.
   it was
    what lingered
      after
       you left.

i didn’t move.
i echoed
   what once
    moved through me.

no pain.
no heat.
just
  what remains.
   the slow witness
    of not-me.

i am not this body.
i am
  the bruise
   that remembers
     your forgetting.

this skin
  isn’t mine.
it holds
  your shape
   better
    than i do.

no voice reached me.  
but i steadied.  
 not out of fear,  
 but to return  
  to the line  
   i vanish from  
    when i go soft.

i didn’t stay
  as i.
i stayed
  as what he //
   or it
    or silence
      left in me.

—

A fractal elegy for the age of unraveling

Ten Meditations in Mirrorfall
(A Dual Cycle)

Before the Frame Fails

This was never meant to hold.
It was always two voices,
speaking across the echo.

One forgets gently.
One laughs too late.
Neither is whole.

Together, they vibrate.

You may read this as memory.
Or debris.
Or a map scribbled by collapse itself.

Don’t search for resolution.
This isn’t a conclusion.
It’s a frame caught in the act of breaking.

GRAVITY WAS NEVER GENTLE
Five Meditations in Minor Key

I. THE PLUNGE

There is a place
where orbits die

not with fire,
but with forgetting.

The circle breaks.
The rhythm fractures.

Gravity
stops pretending
to be kind.
It shreds.
It consumes.
It opens a throat
where light
cannot scream.

Matter plunges.
Not falling,
but unbecoming.

Like a thought
too dense
to escape
its own weight.

Like a soul
that outlived its name
and couldn’t find another.

Time snags,
like torn silk.

Space frays,
until even silence
forgets itself.

All your clever math
unlearns itself.

The compass spins.
The stars
abandon their script.

And still,
at the lip
of this unmaking,
something burns:

a last defiance,
a dying frequency,
a signal

not of despair,
but of what
refused
to dissolve.



II. THE LIBRARY BEFORE THE HORIZON

In a starless region
past the last mapped orbits
there was a library
that catalogued only the thoughts of things
moments before they ceased to exist.

The librarian
was not a man,
nor a machine,
but a kind of question.

A kind that echoes
in unlit rooms
and makes philosophers
speak softer.

It recorded
the panic of particles,
the elegies
of evaporating comets,
the regrets
of space junk,

and most recently
the final reflections of matter
caught in the plunging region
of a black hole.

Each thought
arrived like a whisper
folded in heat:

«I was spinning.
I was spinning.
Why did I stop?»

«Was this the center
  or the end?»

«Who lit this trap
  with such beautiful equations?»

«Did my spin ever matter?»

«Will any body remember my mass (asking for a friend)?»

Visitors were rare.
One arrived,
with philosophy on his shoulders
and poetry in his gaze.
A walking existential crisis.

He asked:
«Will this library vanish too?»

The librarian replied:
«We are the echo
that outlives the voice.
The reading
is how we haunt.»

Then offered the visitor
a cup of theoretical coffee.

It did not exist.
But it was warm.


III. THE GIFT SHOP AT THE END OF TIME

Welcome.
Please, exit through the singularity.

Yes, we’re still open.
No, we don’t accept time
as currency anymore.

Our shelves hold:

ceramic echoes
fossilized maybes
a music box
playing Cherenkov radiation
labeled «The Blue Note of Singularity»

t-shirts that read:
«Souvenir of Non-Existence»

There’s a snow globe
of the early universe.
Shake it
and watch inflation
run in reverse.

(Children giggle.)
(Physicists weep.)

A vending machine glows faintly.
Insert 3.99 regrets for last thoughts:

«Wait, that was it?»
«What if I tried harder?»
«Does absence have a weight?»
«Is there a restroom?»

Behind the counter
stands a clerk
made of obsolete constants.

He hums in Planck time
and speaks
in discontinued units.

Everything must go,
he says,
sweeping particles
into the clearance bin.

Someone buys a postcard
of a black hole.

«Wish you were here,
but you’re not.
And maybe
you never were.»


IV. THE LOST AND FOUND OF THE MULTIVERSE

Down a hallway
that curves in eleven dimensions
past broken signs
and rewound clocks
there is a room
that waits
for timelines
that slipped away.

The air smells like
white noise
and maybe ozone
and maybe old books.

A sign reads:
«Please claim only what was always yours.»

Inside:

one left shoe
from a life
where you ran

a child’s drawing
from the Earth
where you said yes

dust
clinging to almost-spoken words:
«I love you too»
«I’m sorry»
«I’m not sure I believe»

A woman moves through the shelves
wrapped in layers of herself.
Each version hums a song
no one wrote
but she knows by heart.

A small box trembles.
Its label:
«The life you almost lived.»

It pulses irregularly
leaking light
that refuses to explain.

The clerk has no face
just hands
that ask:

«Would you like to claim?
Or leave something behind?»

You nod.
Or don’t.

The door closes
before you decide
if you were ever real enough
to leave anything behind.


V. THE EXIT THAT NEVER OPENS

This is the place
where endings gather
when they forget
how to end.

The door says EXIT.
But when you reach it
it becomes a mirror
then a sigh
then absence.

Time does not flow here.
It breathes inward
like smoke
curling in memory’s lungs.

On the walls:
projections of futures
that didn’t choose you.

One waves.
One vanishes.
One turns away.

You ask
(or think you ask)
if I go
where does the going end?

The room answers
by not answering.

In the center
a staircase spirals both ways.

Each step is etched with:
a page number from the Library
a price tag from the Gift Shop
a fragment from the Lost and Found

A child once tried to count them.
She is still here.
Very wise.
Very bored.

Light spills
through a crack
in the concept of closure.

Something ancient
touches your shoulder.

Not permission
but reminder:

You never fit.
That was never your failure.
That was the door.

You nod.
But the nod loops.
It always did.

You were always
already leaving.

The door was never the point.
Only the leaning.
Only the weight
before the absence.



*THE SEAM*

[interruption // trace bleed detected]
you were supposed to turn the page  
    —  
        or maybe  
            you did  
             but  
    gravity

      skipped.
voice:  “ you’ve already heard this ”
~
echo: [static]
                               \  “ not.    like.    this. ”
. . . . .
         the loop frays

                a side shifts  
            the frame folds inward  
        echo. misfired.  
you are in
the
se _
                                                                ­      
                                          /CALCULATING COLLAPSE/  
                                                 echo² = silence × witness  
                                                   → solved for witness:  
                                                    wi­tness = echo² / silence  
                                                       ­  (error: division by zero)  
                                                    → solved for silence:  
                                                     silence = echo² / witness  
                                                       ­   (error: witness not found)  
                                                     → solved for echo:  
                                                     echo = ±√(silence × witness)  
                                                      ­     (output: [void])  

       witness?

            no

  message?

          not anymore
something
not you
is remembering you.

and for a moment  
you ache  
not for answers  
but for touch.

_


GRAVITY WAS NEVER SERIOUS
Five Meditations in Comic Key

I. THE PLUNGE

There is a place where orbits drop the script. Not with fire, but with collective existential apathy. The circle says, «I can’t even.» Rhythm takes a coffee break.
Gravity? Please. It’s just your anxious ex, trying to keep you close.
Matter doesn’t fall. It calls in sick, like your last neuron trying to explain tax returns. Like a soul that signed up for enlightenment but got stuck in a customer service loop.
Time extends its deadline indefinitely. Space wrinkles like a badly folded map.
Your physics professor weeps into a chalkboard.
The universe turns to you and asks: « Did you bring snacks? »
At the event horizon, something still vibrates  - not with meaning, but with the leftover buzz of the cosmic microwave. Afterburner reheating existence.


II. THE LIBRARY BEFORE THE HORIZON

In a zip code so remote, not even metaphors deliver. There a library archives the last internal monologues of collapsing matter.
Its newest acquisition: a neutron’s breakup playlist. It’s mostly Radiohead.
The librarian is an anxious paradox that forgets why it walked into the room.
It shelves questions like: «Was I ever meaningful? », «Did my orbit look good from a distance?» , «Did Hawking mention me by name?»
When asked if the library itself would survive, it shrugged in Unicode and offered a lukewarm beverage labeled « 42 percent Certainty -  Now With Foam ».
Reading here is free. Interpreting? That costs your last illusion.


III. THE GIFT SHOP AT THE END OF TIME

Welcome to the only shop where «Everything Must Go» is not a sale. It’s a timeline.
Top picks: DIY Black Hole Starter Kit (batteries imploding), Entropy-flavored chewing gum, t-shirts that read «Ask Me About My Temporal Displacement », a souvenir spoon from the edge of time.
There’s a bobblehead of Schrödinger. It is both nodding and not.
A hologram gently whispers: This aisle no longer exists.
The clerk used to be a theorem. Now he’s just a vibe.
Receipts vanish before you can ask for them. But one always floats back with the words: You were here. Or at least… something like you was.


IV. THE LOST AND FOUND OF THE MULTIVERSE

Located somewhere between déjà vu and mild panic.
Lost items include: the socks you blamed on the dryer (they joined a rebellion), a future where you learned piano, the exact moment you decided not to send that message.
The air smells like nostalgia and oddly specific regret.
A being or maybe a metaphor in a trench coat gestures toward a shelf: Take what calls you. Or leave something you’re tired of carrying.
In one corner, a lunchbox hums. Inside: the apology you rehearsed but never gave. It glows. You don’t open it. But it remembers you.


V. THE EXIT THAT NEVER OPENS

The EXIT sign flickers too bright to trust, too ironic to ignore. When you reach for the handle, it becomes your browser history, then a voicemail from yourself, then the sound of everyone else moving on.
Time here is not measured. It sulks. Causality calls in confused. The walls display alternate lives subtitled badly.
You ask (or almost ask) «Was this the point? »
The answer hides in a staircase looping like a Spotify playlist on anxiety mode. Each step labeled with phrases like: «Oops Maybe next time», «Try turning it off and on again»
A child counts the steps. She’s renamed them after emotions.
A whisper trails behind you: «You never had to knock. The door was always pretending. »
Then it adds, softly: «And yeah. The font was «Comic Sans». But you made it look good. So the universe laughed quietly and folded.»

and I
had No
More
Tears

and Oh Skies!
and Oh Trees!

and I
had No
More
Voices

and the Universe
was rocking
as if into
Nothing