The Fog Inside

It isn't sadness. Sadness has a shape— you can walk around it, point to it, explain it to a doctor who writes things down. This is more like someone replaced the air in every room with something thicker. Not poison. Just—less. Less oxygen. Less reason to cross the floor. The dishes know. They've been sitting there for days, patient as a congregation waiting for a sermon that isn't coming. My phone has thirty-seven notifications. Each one a small bright life happening to someone else. I watch them the way you'd watch a party through a window— close enough to see the dancing, too far to hear the song. People say: go outside. As if outside were not also full of air I'd have to move through. As if my legs had not already voted and the motion carried. Today I opened one curtain. Not for the light. For the practice of opening things. Tomorrow, maybe, the door.