I count the tiles again
Fourteen, always fourteen
Something is pressing behind the sternum
Not pain, not quite, more like a door
Slowly learning how to stay shut
Something closing in the chest
The air arrives but does not stay
Something closing in the chest
The hands still move, the mouth still shapes the words
But somewhere underneath
A room goes dark
The mirror shows a version that remembers
How to stand
The shoes are by the door
In the order I left them
Tuesday smells like Monday
Smells like the one before
A notification lights the ceiling blue
For three seconds
Then the ceiling is just a ceiling again
And the room resumes its patient waiting
Something closing in the chest
The air arrives but does not stay
Something closing in the chest
The hands still move, the mouth still shapes the words
But somewhere underneath
A room goes dark
The radiator ticks its private language
The window holds a street that is not watching back
I have been standing here long enough
For the standing to become a kind of furniture
Something closing in the chest
The air arrives but does not stay
Something closing in the chest
The hands still move, the mouth still shapes the words
But somewhere underneath
A room goes dark
It is not grief
Grief has a shape you can press against
This is more like a frequency
The body has begun to filter out
The signal still transmitting
To a receiver no longer installed
Something closing in the chest
The air arrives but does not stay
Something closing in the chest
The hands still move, the mouth still shapes the words
But somewhere underneath
A room goes dark
Something closing in the chest
The air arrives but does not stay
Something closing in the chest
The hands still move, the mouth still shapes the words
But somewhere underneath
A room goes dark
Fourteen tiles
The kettle cools
The curtains do not move
6:10
