Fragments Where the Light Once Lived

there was a lamp in the corner once

its light was soft, a kind of breathing

now the bulb is gone

and the dust has claimed the shade

i keep thinking i hear it click on at night

but it’s only the streetlights flickering

or maybe my mind

still rehearsing a scene that never ends

the walls here remember better than i do

scratches, shadows, a stain shaped like a bird in flight

every mark is a witness

and i’m the intruder in my own home

once i dreamed of water pouring through the ceiling

the roof broke open like a wound in the sky

yet i woke to silence,

the floor dry as bone

still—

my toes curled as if they were drowning

you see, memory is not a mirror

it bends, it warps, it lies

dreams leak into it,

and i can no longer tell

whether the swing outside was ever real

or just something my sleep invented

to keep me tethered

but i know this much:

there used to be a place here,

where time did not cut so sharply

and i lived in it—

or dreamed i did.