those blue shadows i mistake for a memory of being held

i constantly don’t feel present

i don’t grasp what this moment is

i don’t understand what will be

what already was

sometimes i remember the blue hair

and the empty eyes

and remembering, i realize

how small i really am

if i am anything at all,

anything

still lost.

but i’m not trying to find any path

no connections, no staircase toward the hearth

of what you call your everyday,

your community, your

everyday.

sometimes it feels like i should at least try,

maybe i’m missing a lot after all

but then i remember those eyes

and that hair.

and my neural links melt again.

sink again.

fall again.

but i don’t see it as something negative,

if anything, i think

only by going through it do i see

with my own pupils

my own colors

even if they’re orange, like old streetlamps

they might be.

even if they’re aged, maybe even fading already.

but they warm me.

warm me like only one embrace ever did,

the one i’ll probably never feel again.

my shoulders will remain untouched

by inborn love.

and sadly, that’s probably my own fault.

no matter how much i wish otherwise, no matter how much

i resist

i still end up taking the easier

road.

but once i turn

i remember.

i remember those eyes.

that hair.

those slender

wrists

and fingers.

and i stop.

i stop right there and turn my head.

just enough to see, from the corner of my eye,

what once again

i leave behind.

but by now it’s so familiar

i just lower my eyes.

just lift the corners of my lips

for myself.

or maybe for the sunset’s

orange

light on the cracked

sidewalk.

and this cycle will spin.

spin until, walking sideways, i return

return to where i started.

only, sadly,

i’ll have no slightest understanding

that i ever left.