i lie inside these days
where sometimes the clouds feel heavier
where the air itself carries weight
and time suddenly stops beside me
while we sit inside clocks
whose wheels turn sideways
hands frozen between moments
like even time is unsure
which direction to move in
and i frolic here anyway
rotating slowly in motion
to a song i’ve heard for far too long
a melody worn into my bones
the kind that follows you everywhere
even after the music ends
the wind sits still
haze hanging in the air
burning softly at my lungs
a dull ache that lingers
like bees fumbling against my skin
like memories that refuse
to leave quietly
ashes settle atop everything
and words collide into one another
because silence stretches too long
when the wind refuses to move
excluded in mention
half spoken through conversations
words caught in windows
cracking and slicing apart
shattering through my bones
yet somehow
i remain whole enough
to keep standing here
do you know that feeling
when something hurts deeply
but never enough to fully destroy you
we stand near the sand
hovering over the edge of ourselves
the sun lurking above the water
and i follow its reflection
careful not to fall too far into it
instead i expand upward
stretching in height and thought
trying to understand
why everything moves in circles
why people return to the same feelings
the same mistakes
the same unfinished conversations
why we exist in these moments
where everything feels scattered
everywhere
all at once
and i stand inside time
between being and having been
between memory and presence
the conversations we carry
the looks we leave ourselves trapped inside
the pauses that say more
than language ever could
time and clocks
they only sit quietly on shelves
they do not speak
they simply remain
and we decide for ourselves
whether to receive
what they attempt to show us
this is how i look at us
standing with open arms
trying to receive every word honestly
accepting the ways you see me
even when i cannot agree
even when your version of me
feels distant from the person i know myself to be
and i wish time had been easier
i wish you looked at me
the way i stare into my own reflection
carefully
curiously
with softness instead of doubt
we stand together in time
inside poetry
inside the spaces created
by the way we touch one another
without needing to say anything at all
i look for you in movement
in cars stopped beside me at red lights
in strangers walking through grocery aisles
wondering if sometimes
you wander too
thinking about what things could have become
if fear had stayed quieter
yet somewhere inside myself
i know this is not reality
when snow melts
and the world begins revealing
the versions we tried to leave behind
the footprints
the words
the conversations buried beneath seasons
i think about dinners under the moon
the way laughter echoed softly across tables
the way time seemed suspended there
as though the night itself
wanted us to remain
time exists in the same place forever
and somehow
we both continue existing inside it too
the conversation we once had
is still happening somewhere
echoing through memory
repeating itself endlessly
inside different versions of ourselves
years expand outward
yet everything still remains
nothing we said truly mattered enough
to change the world we were in
but chemistry never arrives all at once
it builds
particle by particle
moment by moment
and once it exists
it lingers forever