After Myself

by Hawenayo

I keep starting
in the middle of a thought,
as if the beginning happened
somewhere else
without me.

I reach for the day
and come back with the shape of it,
not the thing itself.
Tasks hover.
Intentions stall.
Everything feels slightly out of sync,
like my mind is buffering
while the world keeps going.

It’s not that nothing is happening.
It’s that everything happens
a fraction too late.
I’m always arriving
just after myself,
asked to account for thoughts
that never fully showed up.

I try to follow the thread,
but it thins when I touch it.
Between one step and the next,
the ‘why’ drifts out of reach,
and I pause,
standing in the doorway,
forgetting what room I meant to enter.

Effort keeps asking for clarity.
Clarity doesn’t answer.

So I stand there anyway,
holding the question

like a cup gone cold in my hands,
as if that counts for something.

If this sounds unfinished,
that’s because it is.
I am, too.

Not in pieces—
just ongoing,
carrying things that haven’t settled,
trying to live inside a sentence
that won’t land.

There are parts of me
still waiting for language,
still catching up to what happened,
still here without a conclusion.

I trace the shape of what slips,

gathering fragments too small to name,

peering at the edges of a thought as it fades,

and still—

I will probably forget
what I was reaching for
while reaching.
I will probably try again anyway,
because trying is what remains
when clarity doesn’t.