I Feel Myself Torrent -

On the seventh day, the torrent slowed. Not stopped—never that. But slowed enough for me to see the shape of what had been underneath all along. Not a wreck. Not a ruin.

It started small: a forgotten grocery list that surfaced in my mind with the clarity of a scream. Then a laugh I’d buried six years ago, rising like a bubble from deep water—my mother’s laugh, the one she used before the treatments, before the slow quiet. I didn’t summon it. It just came. And then another. And another. Memories I’d locked in chests, weighted with stones, were now drifting up unannounced. i feel myself torrent

I stopped going to work. Stopped answering texts. Sat on my apartment floor with the windows open, even though it was November, even though the neighbors stared. I let the cold in. I let the sound of traffic in. And I let it come. On the seventh day, the torrent slowed

I dried my face. I went to the kitchen. I made tea, and I let it steep too long, and I drank it bitter. Not a wreck