Liminal

Tie a bag to each planet as if you were tying your own hair before sleep. Plastic against branch, knot against wind. It will not keep you safe, it will not show the way — it will only be there, fluttering. A bag knows nothing, but it knows it is tied. I too have been tied to things I didn’t choose: a jaw, a toe, a memory that insists on walking behind me. The wedding ring is inside me still, soft now, part of some other organ. The planets spin without wanting to, without knowing why. The bags spin with them. You follow the sound they make, not because it will take you home, but because you have nothing else to follow. Sometimes the noise is only in your head. Sometimes it’s in the bag. And you can’t tell the difference, so you keep walking.

They say the mind is a neural network. I say it is a bruise learning to pretend it isn’t tender anymore. You touch it and flinch—but only inside. I keep walking. The gravel is not metaphor. It’s just what’s there. I think I am thinking. Still, there is a strange mercy in this bouncing off of the thought. It proves that at least something returns, if not the thing itself. Even if it’s only some form of yourself, misunderstood by you.

OP: 26th June 2025
Edit: 3rd Aug 2025