Zebra Seeking Spoons

It doesn’t arrive like thunder—

no dramatic split in the sky,

no warning siren.

Just a quiet dimming.

A soft unraveling.

The body says, not today,

then not tomorrow,

then stops speaking in words at all.

Only signals now—

sharp, electric,

or dull and endless like rain that won’t let up.

Spoons slip through my fingers

like I never held them.

The drawer is bare again,

echoing.

Time stretches differently here.

Hours thicken.

Days blur at the edges.

I become smaller—

not less,

just contained.

Held within blankets,

within breath,

within the small geography

of surviving.

There is grief here—

for plans that wilted quietly,

for moments I had already begun to love.

There is frustration—

a pulse beneath the pain,

asking why again?

And still—

There is something else, too.

A stubborn ember.

Low, but alive.

It lives in the sip of water,

the shifting of pillows,

the whisper: this will pass.

Even when passing feels impossible.

Even when the world narrows

to ceiling tiles

and the rhythm of hurting—

I am still here.

Not paused.

Not erased.

Just weathering.

Just waiting

for the body to loosen its grip,

for the storm to thin,

for one small spoon

to find its way back

into my hand.