Prelude to Rumor

this, comes from something I’ve felt for a long time but didn’t know how to show

the first time it happened I was twelve

standing in front of a mirror, looking at myself too long—something shifted

I could see my face, but I couldn’t feel that it was me, and that frightened me

since then, I’ve learned to recognize the feeling

it comes quietly

I keep talking, moving doing what I’m doing but I’m not fully inside it

this is what that feels like to me

like something begins at one point

here at the shoulder and then spreads outward

not as damage

not as pain

but as a kind of release

like I am still here but also moving beyond the shape that holds me

the lines are that movement

the color is everything that doesn’t stay contained

the body is what remains when something in me has already stepped away

I call it rumor in skin because it doesn’t arrive as something clear or visible

it begins as a feeling barely there

difficult to name

something moving under the surface before it can be seen

it spreads quietly

without asking

and by the time I recognize it

it is already happening