Instructions for Entering the Feeling That Knows Your Name

I didn’t always know this feeling was deliberate.

For a long time, it surprised me.

Now, when it appears, I do certain things.

I begin by not asking questions.

If I get curious, the feeling goes away.

I leave the room the way it is.

The chair is a little crooked,

the window is half-open,

and it feels like something was already interrupted.

I talk more softly, even when I’m alone.

Some feelings seem to listen more closely

when they think they’re overhearing something.

I move so slowly that my actions don’t feel like mine.

My hands rest wherever they end up.

My eyes don’t settle on anything in particular.

It's like I’m waiting for a sign

that I’m not sure I can trust when it comes.

I let the silence stay, but not the perfect kind.

I let the hum of electricity remain,

the sound of something moving somewhere else.

This feeling seems to want witnesses;

it never has to acknowledge.

I think of something I never finished.

It’s not painful, just unsettled.

Maybe a conversation that ended too soon.

Or a thought I never finished thinking.

I doI don’t try to go back to it. Just let it sit close by,

like a door I chose to leave open.

I notice the small ways my body reveals things.

The breath that hesitates.

Or when my skin tightens for no obvious reason,

how my name sounds odd when I say it quietly.

These are signs that I’m getting near.

When the feeling starts to take shape,

I resist the urge to name it.

Once, I tried calling it longing.

Another time, I called it memory.

Both times, the feeling vanished.

Now I let it remain unnamed,

like someone standing just out of view.

I don’t look at it directly.

I let it stay in the corner of my mind.

It’s a kind of pressure, a presence,

a sense that something notices me

even if I don’t notice that myself.

If I start to feel afraid, I just stay still.

Fear isn’t a warning in this case, no.

It’s a kind of confirmation that I’m getting close to

which has always needed a bit of uneasiness

to stay intact.

I stay only as long as I’m allowed.

The moment I think, this belongs to me,

it starts to slip away.

Trying to own it breaks the spell.

When it leaves, it doesn’t explain itself.

It just leaves things a little different.

as if something inside me shifted just a little bit,

and decided not to announce it.

I don’t try to find a meaning.

I don’t try to explain it.

I go back to my day

and let everything appear,

but I move a bit differently.

As if I’ve been reminded of something.

not of who I am, but of who’s been watching

patiently, to follow the instructions

without asking why.

Photo credit: Layered Emotional States — StockCake: https://stockcake.com/i/layered-emotional-states_2455283_1472038