The Alphabet of Dust

In the corner where sunlight bends through old glass, words I cannot speak anymore gather like dust— each syllable a small glowing mote, suspended in the gold-warm air of a room I'm learning to leave.

They were sharp once, these sounds, they cut through silence like fresh snow, but time has worn them into something gentler, something that catches light instead of breaking it.

I trace them with fingers I cannot feel, watching them spiral in slow revolutions, and understand at last that forgetting is not erasure but transformation— the way a river returns to sea as vapor, returns as rain.

Some mornings I wake to find them settled, a fine film on every surface, proof that I existed here, that I spoke, that I was heard, even if only by dust, only by light.