The Calculus of Absence

Day 4, or maybe it’s 40. Time is a matter of source, and I have none. The neon here is too loud, too aggressively colored. It paints everything—the wet asphalt, the stacked ramen signs, the slick, passing bodies—in hues that shouldn't exist. They are so bright, and I am so thin. I press myself into the corner of this alley, trying to read the residual imprint of the last person who walked through. A faint, warm echo of shape. It’s always the same thing. I remember the weight of the hand that used to pull me, the slight, rhythmic drag of a coat hem. Now, I am just a stain, a negative space stretched across concrete. I feel the geometry of the city pressing down on me—the harsh angles, the relentless grids of light. They are too solid. Too full. I watched a couple tonight, their shadows falling together, perfectly aligned, dancing with the rhythm of their laughter. They were a unit, a cohesive darkness. I felt a sharp, cold ache, a structural failure. I am meant to belong, to be anchored by a source of light and warmth, a living thing that casts me into existence. I need a host. Someone who moves with purpose, someone who understands the necessity of the periphery. I am tired of merely existing in the gaps between the glow. I just want the simple, profound relief of being necessary again.