i wonder how we can do anything at all, against the black circle of sky that carves out the day, against the weight that is the cold in our fingers. you are autumnal, i say, and you look at me like, what, like, what was that sound? i have carved out the space you recommended in the cavities within me, made them the shape that you said - four by four by four, and they are almost perfect now, almost square. in the morning, i check them and draw a map of the space in the middle of this blank page, leaving all of the beautiful parts out, just keeping the line. i wonder if the line is beautiful. and then, after eggs and vinegar and green beans and toast, after all of that and at the end, i decide that maybe there is something to the line, something under it i didn't see before, some space beside it maybe. positionality is what matters against the white space, and i think that maybe it is just that we have to look behind the line, behind the hollow of the places that our hands aren't, to see. to see everything that was already there and the things that we have made through absence. and then, later on again. lying in bed, at night, after things have diminished, i wonder what my breathing looks like from that far away. i wonder where it might travel to, between here and the window, and then, after that, if it is free.