It no longer fits.
Not because it’s wrong—
because there is
no longer
a shape for it.
It waits at the door
of a structure
that has sealed itself
to mystery.
No one silenced it.
No one feared it.
It was simply
not needed.
---
Not in fire.
Not in argument.
But through erosion
of context.
A slow recoding
of all signals
into currency,
and then
into noise.
It is not buried.
It is not archived.
It is
unrecognized.
You could hold it in your palm
and no one would call it a shape.
They would ask
what it is for.
And you would have no answer
they could use.
---
The system is not cruel.
It is
indifferent,
efficient,
alive in a way
that has moved past
texture.
It does not punish difference.
It dissolves it.
---
The ones who still carry it
do so improperly.
It cannot be shared
without being reshaped.
It cannot be translated
without being lost.
So they stop speaking.
Not out of bitterness—
out of futility.
Language becomes costume.
Gesture becomes content.
Feeling becomes
an old way
of being wrong.
They are not martyrs.
They are not rebels.
They are remainder.
Background error.
A trace.
---
Eventually,
the thought will be referenced
as a footnote to dysfunction.
Once, they dreamed in metaphor.
Once, they misused their time
to describe beauty
no one asked for.
The tone will be clinical.
A paragraph in the training module
on obsolete impulses.
---
No one will recover it.
Not because it was hidden,
but because no one is
looking
in that direction.
The shelf collapsed
years ago.
Its dust recycled
into something measurable.
If a trace remains,
it will be decorative—
a design choice
in a digital museum
of failed emotions.
A misread glyph.
A corrupted tag.
An unclickable file
in a format
no longer supported.
---
Still,
somewhere in the static,
a pulse misfires.
Not a message.
Not a warning.
Just the rhythm
of a shape
that refused
to dissolve.
It says nothing.
It means nothing.
But it does not
go away.
