brief echoes of the past arrange themselves in my present like shadow puppets on the backs of my eyelids while i sleep.
there is an uneven fulcrum digging into my lower back no matter how i turn my long body.
my eyes open into the same familiar room, with the same familiar speckles on the ceiling that they always do. the shadows resume their innumerable forms and i wake to write another step towards the beveled edge of immortality.