when the numbness returns i ask :

where were you these past few days?

without you, i almost believed i could live

rather than just go on.

but now that you're here, i feel like myself again :

people are just faces and chatboxes

and uninhabitable, uncrossable planets

orbiting between the world and me.

*

when the page tore away from the book

i picked it up and folded it and used it

as a bookmark and realized that's what i do :

i take what broke away from me and use it

to mark where i'm going.

the road is long and i've swallowed

all my milestones.

when someone opens the book

the bookmark slips out.

whether they notice it or not doesn't change

the fact that the incomplete book remembers

that it's not enough.

so it stays closed, turned away even from those

who're willing to read it without judgement.

~ ajay

20/10/2022