Sleeping Protocols – Day 0

I think this is the kind of treaty that starts

in the way you leave your socks on the floor differently,

knowing someone else might see.

–

Not made by law.

But by witnessing.

–

Not public.

But not private anymore either.

–

The bed is still mine.

The mug is still mine.

But something’s loosening in the idea of “mine.”

Not through ideology. Through anticipation.

–

Filipe is coming.

Not “the participant.”

Not “the collaborator.”

Just a boy with a name, a timing, and a wound.

Just someone I know without knowing.

–

Maybe nothing will happen.

But even that “nothing”

will now be shared.

And that’s not nothing.

–

No one has arrived yet but something has

—like breath before speech.

–

I am here,

but the “I” feels a little expanded,

slightly pressed from the inside.

The night before he came,

Every corner knows I am here.

Sleeping Protocols – The Day

An agreement is being lived,

In a room,

In this building.

First dinner, no words were spoken.

I didn’t know about the moon.

And a song shared our silence.

And this is how I feel

Note

I Had Nothing to Show Off

You Had Nothing To Hide

–

An Agreement is being lived

Everywhere we go,

And I don’t aspire to be

homeless.

A pigeon discarded

Feeds on rice

Everytime it comes

Close home.

–

The Morning

I had given up on my side of the bed,

But pulled back to position by default.

Centre Piece

I had once seen this tree,

in Berlin, 2015.

A tree, still, in a city that moved.

A glitch looping around it-

a repeating fragment

that intensifies,

asking for recognition.

–

Last night,

I stood outside a circle

I once blurred into.

Not alone—

but with a boy.

–

Outside what once held me,

I saw it clearly—

I called it Centre Piece, not realising

I was naming my condition.

I thought highly of myself—

Central.

–

Last night,

the known grew limbs—

primal ones.

Crude.

Pombo

She is a friend.

She comes-before

my face is ready to face the other.

Every day,

curios,

ready to receive,

giving

without knowing.

No reason,

there.

Home is more now,

for-

no reason.

We came to the end

right where we started-

with socks.

Could I lend him socks I didn’t use?

There were never enough clean ones.

I could spare a sock, not a pair.

So he took

a sock.