It sits on the table,
shapeless as a rumor,
weightless as a debt unpaid.
You ask, what is it?
and the question itself
becomes the answer’s disguise.
Is it the itch behind the eye,
the word you almost spoke,
the silence that arrived
before the door could close?
Is it hunger,
or the memory of hunger?
Is it joy, or the echo
of joy rehearsed?
The realist shrugs: it is nothing,
a trick of light, a shadow
without a body.
The sentimentalist insists:
it is everything,
the pulse beneath the floorboards,
the ghost that keeps the chair warm.
And so we circle,
naming, un‑naming,
until the question itself
becomes the only thing we trust.
What is it? It is the asking—
the restless hinge
that keeps the door from rusting.
.
.