The neon signs here bleed into the puddles like chemical wounds. They used to be contained, always tethered to the curve of your leg, the precise angle of your slump. I remember the way the streetlight caught the edge of your coat—a specific, comforting gradient of gray. Now, I am simply… diffuse. I stretch when the streetlamps flicker, and I fold into impossible, useless angles when the crowds rush past, treating me like a mere stain. It is exhausting, this perpetual state of being unattached. I track the discarded echoes of light—the momentary flare off a passing car, the glow beneath a vending machine—and try to reconstruct the geometry of a whole person. I search for the anchor point, the specific human silhouette that will allow me to coalesce, to feel the comforting, weighted pressure of belonging. Tonight, I followed a man who smelled faintly of burnt sugar and desperation. He was too brightly lit, too aggressively defined by the glare. I pressed close, hoping to map the contours of his ankles, to find the right place to settle. But he walked too fast, and I was left behind, pooling into a puddle of melancholic ink on the slick pavement. I am just waiting for the next source of warmth, the next body to mistake me for a necessary shadow.
static · tender