Unfinished

A fascination with the blank spaces
keeps this city still — the quick 
inhale of dawn, the white 
between your words —

My senses stay grounded
in the world’s wait, with days
heavier than years and the explainable
like steam skating off lakes, 
refusing to sustain itself.

But I am always miscalculating 
distances, running into edges 
of walls, corners of conversations —
everything and everyone 
pieced too closely together 
for even the body to contain itself. 

Never able to avoid 
the physicality of even our 
pauses, we hold ourselves
tight, contain ourselves, control 
our selves, and lift up 
the space between as proof
that the world noticed us 
enough to dismiss us.