I Forgot How to Be Happy

8:37 PM

The house keeps its own weather now.

Light lies flat on the table. The cups remember heat better than I do.

I misfiled the word for warmth.

Once, laughter snagged in my chest like a small bird.

Now it flies past the window and does not look in.

I wave anyway. Habit is polite.

People say failure teaches.

I learned instead how to arrange my face like flowers in a rented vase.

Upright, color-correct, water changed on schedule.

It looked like living.

Surprises were once little sparks.

a note under the door, a name said softly, a hand finding mine by accident.

Now I count their teeth first. I ask who will pay.

Joy sours when you check the bill before tasting.

I have stood among bodies and not been found.

Not loneliness, something thinner.

Like standing in the sea and realizing the sea does not hold you,

it only allows. It does not notice your name.

I date like a corridor.

Long, white, obedient.

I practice my steps. I keep the echo small.

Dreams used to arrive like weather.

A warm front, a foolish rain.

Now I fold them into small square papers,

label the drawer, call it safety.

Happiness has become a foreign tongue I once spoke as a child.

I know the shape of the words,

how the lips go round, how the teeth should meet,

but sound turns to air on the way out.

There are mornings when breathing feels like remembering a password

I promised never to write down.

I try old combinations. I try birthdays. I try the soft emergencies.

The door stays kind and closed.

This is the quiet drip of a tap you meant to fix.

This is the room keeping its own counsel.

This is the body saying: function first, later we can feel.

I once loved. Not well, but truly.

There was proof. The stupid, shining kind:

I laughed with my mouth open. I ate sweet things without earning them.

I believed in a future that did not require a receipt.

I have people who would answer at 2AM.

I have a name someone says like it is theirs to keep safe.

It is not nothing. It is not enough.

So I write. Not confession. Not art.

A line of breadcrumbs under the furniture.

A map for a girl who went quiet on her way through the house.

Call it glitch if you like. Call it weather.

Call it the mind setting its own clock and forgetting to tell the hands.

Somewhere under the good posture and the rinsed glass,

something still knocks from the inside.

I set the cup down. I listen for it.

If it comes back, I will not clap. I will not frighten it.

I will let it sit beside me like a shadow learning warmth.

I will say nothing. I will stay.

And in that staying.

A small hinge loosens.

A door remembers how to open.

Eventually

Eventually.

-ikkelio (who still dreams in lowercase)

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