Tag: black and white photography

Phototaxis

The buildings remind me of splayed fingers.

Evening seeps between them,
staining the asphalt, though much of it
still tries to rise — coral blushing peach,
cooling to lavender, then smoke,

a haloed dome above,
then nothing,

or the illusion of nothing:
our minds supplying
the celestial forms
we remember seeing at night.

And with night,
low-pressure sodium vapor
arrests the compound eye.

Wing scales blur
the distance between street and lamp,
straining toward what
will never turn back:

Apollo toward Daphne,
Sköll toward the sun,
Hati toward the moon —

hungry.

Deafening Silence

It comes without warning,
like snow deciding the forest has said enough.

No hush, no shhh—
only abrupt vacancy
where small sounds once rented rooms.

The clock, once ticking like nervous fingers,
now pauses between seconds,
unwilling to be first to violate the truce.

In this wide, white room without echo,
even memory moves softly,
careful not to wake the next thought.

Silence is not absence.
It is a different density—
the weight of everything
that was nearly spoken
pressing inward against the ribs.

Here, grief finally releases its breath
without excuse.
Here, joy learns
it does not require an audience.

Stay.
Let the hush complete its long sentence.
It has been composing it
since the first word learned how to sound.

The days were different.
Strange days.
One event chasing another,
the atmosphere charged, explosive.

I learned how to disappear
without leaving.
How to lie still
and let the weight settle.

Not to fix the feeling.
Not to outrun it.
To sink for a while—
one day,
then another.

Outside, things kept breaking.
A truck overturned on the road.
Metal folded into itself.
Yesterday, in the same place,
a chain accident—
cars pressed together
as if there was nowhere else to go.

Inside, I wanted nothing.
Emptiness had a shape.
Loneliness too.

I stayed long enough
to feel the ground again.
Moved a little.
Stayed.

I thought I was waiting
for something to change.
For the noise to pass.
For the door to open.

But when it did,
there was no one there.