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.
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