I arrived barefoot
tongue heavy with borrowed syntax
eyes trained on the flicker between gestures
the way a hand hesitates before reaching
the way silence folds itself into a question.

I mistook bruises for constellations
mapped them across the skin like ancient routes
each one a pilgrimage
each one a failed translation.

I thought pain had grammar
that longing could be conjugated
into something less feral.

the heart is not a scroll.
it does not unroll neatly.
it bleeds through the margins
smudges the ink
laughs at the scholar in me
who still believes in clarity.

I touched someone once
and felt their grief like static
a hum beneath the ribs
a Morse code of everything unsaid.

I tried to decode it
but the symbols kept shifting
love became hunger
hunger became apology
apology became a door
I could not open.

I am still learning
that some hieroglyphs are meant to be lived
not read.
that some wounds speak in tongues
only the body understands.
that to be human
is to misinterpret
and keep interpreting
until the ache becomes a kind of fluency.

tenement roofs illuminated not by stars, not by grace, but by the flickering hum of a busted neon sign, half a block down, where the laundromat breathes steam into the night, and someone’s mother folds shirts like prayers.

the tar is soft under bare feet, summer’s last gasp clinging to the gravel, and the pigeons, they don’t sleep, they just blink slowly as if remembering something from before the city learned to forget.

a boy throws a paper plane from the sixth-floor fire escape. it loops once, then dives into the alley, where a cat watches with the patience of old gods.

the air smells of fried onions, like rain that hasn’t arrived yet, and the sigh of a man who’s been waiting for a phone call since 1993.

someone laughs, too loud, too sudden, and the sound ricochets off the satellite dishes like a warning or a dare.

the roofs glowed, not golden, not holy, but with the kind of light that makes you think maybe ghosts wear sneakers and hum pop songs while tracing the outline of their old bedrooms in dust.

and somewhere below, a radio plays a song no one remembers the name of, but everyone knows the words.

a number like a bruise on the underside of memory  
a barcode tattooed on the back of a dream  
And the echo of a name you forgot to forget  

six legs of an insect crawling across the ceiling of thought  
five fingers clenched around a stolen cigarette  
five again, because repetition is punishment, is ritual, is comfort  
three seconds before the door slams shut  
two eyes watching from behind the mirror  
one is the self, fractured, refracted, renamed  

655321  
not a number, but a sentence  
not a sentence, but a silence  
not a silence, but a scream with the volume turned down  

the world turns in loops  
milk drips from a broken glass  
a Beethoven symphony plays in reverse  
and somewhere, someone is laughing  
but it’s not joy, it’s not mockery  
it’s the sound of gears grinding in the machinery of remorse  

I am not I  
I am 655321  
I am the sum of my subtraction  
the residue of my rebellion  
the ghost in the system  
the system in the ghost  

and still
the number pulses  
like a heartbeat  
like a countdown  
like a name I never chose  
but always answered to.

the coffee’s burnt again  
and the cat’s staring like it knows  
I haven’t cried in six years  
but I’ve been leaking in other ways
through the fridge light,  
through the cracks in the drywall,  
through the way I say “fine”  
when I mean “I’m rotting.”

the mailman dropped another envelope  
with no name, just a whisper  
and I thought maybe it was time  
to bury the version of me  
that still believed in clean slates  
and women who don’t flinch  
when you say you write poems.

I’m overdue for a funeral  
but nobody wants to dig  
unless there’s a paycheck  
or a priest involved  
and I don’t believe in either.

the barstool still remembers my spine  
and the bartender’s got a face  
like a broken clock
always stuck at 2:17 a.m.  
when the jukebox plays Sinatra  
and the drunks pretend  
they’re philosophers.

I tried to write an obituary  
for the part of me that used to care  
but the pen ran out  
and the paper laughed.

so I lit a cigarette  
and gave the ashes a name.

the words swell at the back of the throat
not sharp, not graceful,
just swollen, sticky things
that taste of rusted mirrors and dust

they scrape against teeth
as if begging for release
but the mouth betrays them
lips clamp shut, jaw wired tight
and the body remembers
how silence can arrive dressed as shelter

apologies ferment there
growing bitter,
soured by delay and shame
they roll around the tongue as gravel that thinks itself precious stone
until even breath carries the weight of a cathedral underwater

each inhale interrupted,
as though contrition itself
is a hand pressed firm against the windpipe
reminding me regret is not air
regret is a shadow stitched to bone
regret is residue that glows faintly in the dark

and the chest shudders
a body trying to cough out
something it cannot name
something lodged between
what should be spoken
and what should stay buried

I choke,
but nothing escapes
except the silence
and the heat of a throat
burning with everything
I meant to give away.

the moon forgot  
how to be round tonight  
and i
i misplaced my name  
somewhere between  
your shoulder blade  
and the breath  
that almost said  
stay

(why do clocks insist  
on knowing everything  
about leaving)

i tried to write  
but the letters curled inward  
petals afraid of morning  
and the sentence  
ran away  
with the silence

you were never a person  
you were a parenthesis  
i stepped into  
and never stepped out of

the sky  
is not blue  
it’s memory  
trying to remember  
how to feel

i loved you  
a comma  
pausing before  
the thought  
that never arrived

and if i could  
unbutton the stars  
i’d fold them  
into paper cranes  
and send them  
to the version of me  
that didn’t forget  
how to feel

but i did  
and you did  
and the world  
keeps spelling itself  
wrong

watched you  
rain on glass  
didn’t knock  
just stayed  

you moved  
unaware  
or pretending  
either felt the same  

said things  
too quiet  
maybe truer that way  
maybe not  

you leaned  
but not toward me  
just into your silence  

reflection  
not mine  
not yours  
just something  
almost  

wanted to fade  
not vanish  
just  
softer
into  
you  

your pauses  
felt like rooms  
I wanted to live in  

center?  
no  
echo  
warmth  
after  

you  
here  
but not  
always  
somewhere  
else  

me  
trying  
to be  
wherever  
you  
weren’t