a shadow calling me
not with voice
but with the weight of memory pressed against my spine
a hush that drips from the ceiling
and pools at my feet
I walk toward it
not because I want to
but because the air tastes like unfinished sentences
and I’ve always struggled with leaving things unsaid
it doesn’t beckon
it waits
like a question I forgot to ask
or a name I almost remembered
I think it knows me
the way I flinch at kindness
the way I catalog every silence
as if it might one day bloom into an apology
I think it’s mine
the shadow
the echo
the flicker in the corner of my eye
that disappears when I turn
I keep moving
not forward
not back
just through
through the ache of recognition
through the static of old grief
through the soft collapse of what I thought I was
a shadow calling me
and I answer
by becoming quieter
than I’ve ever been