Cornerless

You taught me how to stand still

in a room that kept expanding.

Every wall bent away from me

like it had somewhere more important to be.

I counted the cracks in the paint

until they spelled a language

that didn’t forgive vowels.

I think you understood it—

you just pretended not to.

I keep finding your fingerprints

on things I haven’t touched yet.

The air folds around them

like it’s afraid to forget.

I try to rebuild the silence we broke,

but it keeps coming back sharper,

and I can’t hold it without bleeding.

I dreamt you as a hallway

that never ended the same way twice.

Some nights, the exit was a mirror.

Some nights, it was the sound of my name

leaving someone else’s mouth.

I wrote down the pattern,

but the paper dissolved when I woke,

like even the memory refused to be kept.

I keep finding your fingerprints

on things I haven’t touched yet.

The air folds around them

like it’s afraid to forget.

I try to rebuild the silence we broke,

but it keeps coming back sharper,

and I can’t hold it without bleeding.

You once told me

that nothing disappears,

it just changes its address.

If that’s true,

then you’re still here,

rent-free in the architecture

of everything I can’t look at for too long.

When the floor caves in,

I’ll call it closure.

When the ceiling falls,

I’ll call it proof.

When I stop hearing you in the echoes,

I’ll wonder if I’ve gone deaf

or if you finally left