Hi Anthony
The name rises in my throat
Like a lantern lifting itself
Through a room I haven’t walked in for Years
I say it again
Quieter
As if I’m brushing dust
Off the edge of my own shadow
Hi Anthony
And something inside me stirs
Some half forgotten version of myself
Turning its head
As though it finally heard its summons
I speak to myself the way rain speaks to
Windows
Soft
Persistent
Trying to remember the shape of the World
Before it fell
There are days I feel like a corridor
With all the doors slightly open
And every time I say my name
Another light flickers on
In a room I thought I’d locked
Hi Anthony
The syllables tremble like a bridge
Between the man I carry
And the man who carries me
I say it again
Letting the sound lengthen
Letting it bloom in the hollow places
That never learned how to hold warmth
Maybe this is how
I return to myself
Not with certainty
Not with triumph
But with a small
Steady invocation
A name spoken into the dark
Until the dark remembers me
Hi Anthony
Come closer
I’m trying to meet myself
Without looking away