Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Aug 14

They’ll know the sound
Of a room holding its breath The sound of how a story frays right before it breaks

Until then I keep the corners dusted the windows clear and the signals small enough to miss

6

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Aug 14

Sometimes I let a sentence fall where it doesn’t belong A stone in the middle of their smooth road

No one trips on it Not yet But I imagine the one who will and the pause that follows

1 7

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Aug 14

We speak of weather Repairs that can wait Everything except what’s under the floorboards

I smile in the doorway Wave as they leave
Then close the latch softly so it doesn’t sound like closing

1 6

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Aug 14

I tell them I’ve been busy
They nod, relieved As if the days will keep me from drifting too far out

The coffee cools on the counter I leave it there all afternoon Watching the steam fade like it never belonged

1 6

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Aug 14

Not Yet.

1 6

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

Just in time to say goodbye.

4

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

I want to believe you left knowing me. The real me. Even if only for a breath.

Measured in weeks instead of years. But I ache with the weight of having arrived.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

Regret doesn’t scream. It hums low and endless.
Like a room never stepped into
before the house collapsed. 
You never asked me to be smaller. That was me, thinking I was doing us both a favor.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

And I grieved anyway. Still do. Not just you
but the time I didn’t give us.

I wonder what it could’ve meant if I’d trusted you sooner. If we’d had more time instead of so little.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

I told you then. At last. Because time was no longer a theory.

You smiled like it wasn’t news. Held my hand like I hadn’t been missing.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

I smiled around it. Laughed through it. Became fluent in avoidance.

But something shifted when you got sick. The countdown started, and my voice cracked open.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

So I kept it quiet.
A small truth, pressed between pages of other people's lives.

I became a quiet version of myself.
It was easier to be a silence
than a disappointment.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

I told myself you already knew. That I didn’t need to say it out loud.

That it didn’t matter.  Not really.  Not without someone else to point to.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

I used to practice the words in the dark.  How I’d say them if I ever got brave.

Not loud, just… Real. But years passed in muffled rehearsals.

1 3

joet @joetryinmotion.bsky.social · Jul 23

Weeks.