Vestige

The room adjusts the lights when no eyes blink-

a chair slightly askew,  

dust gathering in patterns  

resembling nothing,  

and yet you stare for long hours  

Something beneath the floor creaks  

but it’s not you

You wear gestures like jewels,  

smile with borrowed gladness,  

pause mid-sentence as if  

someone else once spoke through the crevice

of your sadness.  

The mirror doesn’t lie—  

it just forgets and never recalls.

There’s a rhythm to forgetting:  

a pulse in the silence between thoughts,  

a name almost recalled  

then swallowed by other images pasted

on the pointless walls of your mind.

You decide to close your eyes

and pretend to remember.

But something else steals the moment

and you forget again, and again.