Recovery Mode

Padded memories

Stored like Tetris in brown paper

A temporary time capsule of cardboard

Humming on standby

In a living room that asked

Too much of me

I packed away everything fragile

Except myself

The dusty book with untouched pages

Photos rehearsing happiness

A $60 candle half-spent

How it burned for conversation!

Blank walls and empty shelves

Never exclude you

Or tell you to cheer up

Finally, there’s space to breathe

In an electric hiss of stillness

Beneath the halo of lamplight

Air vents remembered their chorus

Barren hardwood offered no reply

Home at last

Among the other quiet things

I wasn’t moving

But I wasn’t going anywhere, either

Days later, I unwrapped

Each small life preserved for me

Because when empty rooms remember,

Absence comes with questions

Tape peeled back with the sound

Of crinkles and expectant sighs

Bubbles popped in celebration

Soft, almost tender

My living room exhaled

Once everything was where it should be

And never bothered asking

Where I had been