I moved through years
like corridors
doors opening
onto quiet.
What formed
was not knowledge
but the hollow it leaves.
One constant
at the margin of things:
You.
Them.
Fixed points
burning
behind the eyes.
I held nothing...
not even walls
that kept heat.
Then pressure.
Then accumulation.
A long shadow
touching stone
without care,
with recall.
A force
speaking through surfaces,
losing the speaker
mid-utterance.
Structures rose from hunger.
The air thinned.
I saw my outline
in passing bodies.
Their injuries
kept the same tempo.
Long enough
to recognize reopening.
Long enough
to fall back into helplessness
by habit.
No people...
only memory
circling
outside sleep.
So I assembled a skin
that bent the light.
Continuous.
Intact.
Signals returned.
Heads inclined.
Truth
travels better
with a surface.
I did not display ruin.
I was working...
hands operating
past comfort.
What emerged
was not height
but span:
a crossing
back to what stayed
untaken.
I tried...
not for ascent
but for resonance.
Weight placed
on unstable ground.
Shelter named.
Earlier records sealed.
Time folded
and passed again,
repeating:
You.
Them.
And love...
low heat.
Unannounced.
Without it
systems fail.
Surfaces peel.
It remains.
The only element
that did not fracture.
- UpsilonA