Without a Title
I return to the same place
where the story tightens.
Not because I expect surprise.
Because endings feel safer
when you already know them.
That section is crowded now.
Ink pressing into ink.
Loose scraps wedged between lines,
notes written in moods
I no longer remember having.
Sometimes I argue with the paper,
as if it can answer.
As if it owes me one.
There’s a moment I slow down for.
Where I shrink myself
into something negotiable.
It isn’t long,
but it stretches.
It always stretches.
Nothing rises there.
Nothing resolves.
They say meaning shifts
depending on where you stand.
That must be true,
The record is accurate.
Uncomfortably so.
Still, memory edits.
I tell it louder.
Sharper.
I erase your better angles
because forgiveness feels like consent.
That part of the story refuses to rest.
I set everything down
and it opens itself again,
The surface is worn thin there,
creased by attention,
softened by return.
I know this damage.
It comes from examination.
From circling something
From knowing every word
and checking anyway.
The rest of the narrative is just fine.
It lies still.
Untroubled.
This one shifts,
unmoored,
answering a pull
it pretends not to feel.
I worry it will last.
because repetition
has a way of convincing time.
Still, responsibility remains.
I wrote what i wrote.
I keep opening it.
Whatever survives inside that book,
does so with my permission.
So well written
but I really liked the way you titled it "Without a Title" and it begins with (something along the lines of) " I return to were the story tightens" as in you are reading from a middle, from an end and not from a beginning where the title always precedes.
Great piece. I understand that we don’t keep returning to the same page because we love pain. Rather, we return because familiar endings can feel safer than uncertain healing. But a point to note is that we always have the option not to stay there. We can forgive without consenting, and we can close the book without losing our voice.