The Place Where Reality Hides

I woke with a thought
stuck between my teeth.

It tasted like metal
and someone else's childhood.

Outside, the morning
was being assembled badly.

A man nailed sunlight
to the side of his house.

A tree was counting birds
and losing track at seven.

The pavement remembered
every foot that had lied to it.

I stood there wondering
who had taught the world
to look so certain.

Then my shadow
began growing upward.

It climbed past my shoulder,
reached into the blue,
and pulled down a handful
of yesterday.

I watched myself
doing things I couldn't remember.

There I was,
laughing at a table
that didn't exist yet.

There I was,
older, quieter,
holding a key
to a house I had never seen.

I dropped the memory.

It shattered into small noises.

Somewhere, a spoon fell.

Somewhere, a child laughed.

Somewhere, a door closed
in a room that had never been built.

I began to wonder:

What if thinking
isn't something we do?

What if thoughts
are tiny animals
that borrow our heads
while we sleep?

What if reality
isn't solid at all,

but merely
a very convincing rumor
that keeps repeating itself?

The afternoon disappeared
without saying goodbye.

Night arrived carrying
a black bowl filled with stars.

I reached inside.

My hand came back
holding nothing,

yet I could feel
something enormous
moving through me.

Perhaps that is consciousness:

a window with no glass,

a question with a heartbeat,

a strange little flame
trying to understand
the darkness

while the darkness
quietly wonders

what we think
we are looking at.