Tag: loneliness

  • 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.