The Mirror You Were Taught to Love Before you have spoken a single word this morning, you have already performed. You stood in front of

The Room Where She Was Not Supposed to Think You are arranging your thoughts at the table while someone else speaks. The words being said

The Table You Were Not Invited To You are sitting at the table. You have been sitting at the table for forty minutes, and in

The Room That Was Never Yours You are sitting at someone else’s desk. It might be the kitchen table, cleared for twenty minutes before the

The Woman Who Was Not Born, But Made You catch yourself in the mirror before you mean to. Not a long look, not a deliberate

The Body Before the Thought You wake before you know where you are. The smell reaches you first — wet earth, something fungal and ancient,

The Smell of Soil Before the Rain You are standing at the edge of a field in late afternoon, and something stops you. Not a

The Dinner Table That No Longer Speaks You sit across from each other and the candles are lit because someone, at some point, decided that

The Bargain You Already Made You remember the exact moment. Not the days of deliberation before it, not the rationalizations that came after, but the

The Young Man Who Refused to Become What They Made Him You know the feeling. You are sitting at a table that was set for

The Island, the Prison, the Notebook You are sitting at a table that is not yours, in a room that is not yours, in a

The Weight of the Stone You have been watching him for ten minutes and he has not looked up once. His hands move across the