Vertigo in your prescense

It is not the body that trembles first.

It is the space we inhabit.

Something falls out of place in the air

when you are there,

as if the world lost a minimal measure

and could no longer hold itself the same way.

It is not fear.

It is an attention too open,

a sudden way of being awake

even with closed eyes.

The objects remain where they are—

the table, the light, the distant noise.

But something moves slowly inside,

like a house releasing a new weight.

I speak little, out of vertigo.

I walk more slowly,

as if the breeze stopped me while breathing.

The body tries not to fall from itself,

even though the unconscious

has already promised a final fall, a tremor—

one that leaves a lucidity that does not console,

a closeness that does not explain.

To stand before someone

is sometimes

to lean over your own limit.

And on that unstable edge,

without an answer,

something insists on remaining upright.