Absence

I have learned to disappear without moving.

My body stays.

It sits in the chair.
It answers when spoken to.
It lifts a glass.
It crosses one leg over the other.

It knows how to imitate me.

No one notices
when I leave.

Sometimes
I hear my own voice
from far away
and wonder
who taught it
to continue without me.

I can smile
at exactly the right moment.

I can touch your hand.

I can look directly at you
while something inside me
keeps moving backward.

I do not know
where I go.

Only that everything
becomes more distant
without moving an inch.

The walls recede.
Faces lose their edges.
My name sounds
like something
I once answered to.

And still

my body remains.

Patient.

This is what frightens me:

how little I am required
for my own life
to continue.

Sometimes
I catch myself in a mirror

and for one second

I do not recognize
which one of us

has been waiting.