Living Inside Movement

(2:00 a.m.)

I wasn’t trying to write.

I picked up charcoal
because I needed somewhere to put it.

Whatever this is. Just lines. Nothing finished. Nothing that stays still long enough to make sense.

I kept trying to shape it
into something I could recognize.

Couldn’t.

Every time I thought I had it—It moved.

So I stopped trying to make it look like anything.

Just let my hand follow it. That’s when it felt closer.

Not right—just… closer.

Same thing here.

I’m not writing to explain it. I don’t even think I can.

I’m writing because it won’t sit still inside me.

Because it keeps happening and then disappearing like it was never there.

And I’m left with it
Whatever’s left of it
trying to hold onto something that doesn’t hold back.

So this isn’t a story.

It’s not even a thought all the way through.

It’s just me trying to catch something in the moment it almost becomes real.

Before it moves again.

I keep seeing you
in the middle of things

Never where anything starts, never where anything ends

You just show up, and I let you

Like it’s something I agreed to a long time ago without realizing it

We talk—we always talk—about everything that doesn’t matter

Because the one thing that does would change everything

And we’re not willing to do that

So we don’t

We just stay here
Living inside movement,
letting it keep going
because stopping it
would force it to become something real

And I think that’s
what’s wearing me down

Not you
Not even this

Just the way
it never gets to land the way I feel it and then have to pretend
I don’t

The way you look at me
like something is there
and then leave like nothing is

I don’t think you’re lying

I think

You’ve learned
how to live inside it
without letting it touch
the parts of your life
that would break

I haven’t

And maybe that’s the difference between us

You go back to something solid, something defined,
something that makes sense to the world

And I stay here—in something that only exists when you’re standing in front of me

And I hate that sometimes

I hate how real it feels
when you’re here, and how quickly it disappears when you’re not

I hate that I’ve learned
how to adjust to that

How to hold it without asking for more

Without asking you to choose it

And I’m tired

Not loudly—Not in a way anyone would see

Just in that quiet place
where something keeps going long after it should have stopped

And still—I stay

Not because I don’t know better

Not because I’m waiting

But because something in me still believes
this isn’t nothing

That it matters in some way that doesn’t have a place to exist

So I stay—in something that moves, but never arrives

And maybe one day
I’ll get tired enough
to step out of it

Or maybe I won’t

Maybe I’ll just keep
living here—in this quiet, unfinished space

Where something real
keeps happening
without ever becoming anything

I can call mine