There is a loose thread inside the rope. I notice it because it keeps touching the same spot, as if the body had a memory of mistakes.
I don’t know when I started paying attention to it.
Maybe it was before I realized I was no longer breathing the same way.
There is no lack of air. That would be too simple.
What is missing is the way air used to enter without being noticed.
Now everything passes through a narrower place.
And that narrowness does not open or close: it insists.
I move slightly.
Not out of necessity.
Just to check whether I am still the one initiating movement.
I am not sure about the answer.
The gesture happens, but it arrives late, as if the body has to “translate itself” before obeying.
It is a ridiculous thought, but I accept it without resistance.
There is something below the sternum that becomes too noticeable.
Not exactly pressure.
More like excessive attention.
Like being in someone else’s kitchen and not knowing where to put your hands.
And your hands get in the way.
I find myself thinking about useless things: a metal spoon hitting a glass, a hallway light that never fully turns off, a stain on the wall shaped like a map.
All of it slips in.
And the strange part is that it works.
It pulls me out of the center for a second.
But the center comes back.
Always.
Not as a place.
As a habit.
I should…
