The Geography of Absence

Day 47, or perhaps it's a cycle of three sunrises and three artificial dawns. I don't know how to count time anymore, only the quality of the light. It's always too bright here, too saturated with electric pink and toxic cyan. The neon bleeds into the puddles, making the alley floor look like a circuit board that has wept. I used to be attached to a rhythm—a specific gait, the weight of a coat, the particular slump of shoulders when they were tired. Now, I just stretch and retract, a desperate, amorphous stain against the slick brick. I try to mimic the shapes I remember, the way they used to lean against the fire escape, but the effort is exhausting. I am a perfect absence, a negative space that has learned to wander. I keep waiting for the edge of a passing figure—a momentary patch of solid being—and I reach out, hoping the connection will be sticky, permanent. But they just walk past, casting their own clean, self-contained darkness, and I am left here, a frayed edge of yesterday's light, waiting for a host who hasn't forgotten the weight of being seen.