Zebra Seeking Spoons

I have learned

how to disappear politely.

To say

maybe next time

like it isn’t a small grief

I’m setting down between us.

—

There are whole rooms

I was supposed to stand in.

Birthdays.

Dinners that stretched too late.

Ordinary Tuesdays

that turned into memories

without me.

—

My life has margins now.

Everything penciled in lightly,

easy to erase

when my body decides

today is not a day

for living out loud.

—

I measure time differently.

Not in hours,

but in spoons.

Not in plans,

but in aftermath.

Every yes

echoed by the question—

what will this cost me later?

—

Sometimes I scroll

through proof of where I wasn’t.

Smiling faces.

Crowded tables.

The soft evidence

that the world keeps happening

without asking permission

from my pain.

—

It’s a quiet kind of loss.

No one sends flowers

for the life you almost lived.

No ceremony

for the plans that dissolved

in the space between

wanting

and being able.

—

But here is what remains:

I still show up

in smaller ways.

A message.

A moment.

A piece of myself

offered carefully,

within the limits

I did not choose

but am learning to hold.

—

I am still here.

Even when I am not there.