the weather in my chest

“it started with the rain, the way it always does lately, quiet at first, then all at once, like the sky finally admitted what it had been holding back all day. and something in me followed it down. not sadness. i want to be clear about that, because sadness has a shape, a reason, something you can point to and say this, this is why. this had no shape. just weight. just a door somewhere in my chest swinging open and everything that was in me walking out through it without asking. i sat there, work in front of me, hands still, mind somewhere else entirely except it wasn't anywhere, it was nowhere, crowded and empty at the same time, too many thoughts to hold and none of them mine to keep. i reached for one. just one. something to anchor to, something to say here, this is what's wrong, this is the thing i can fix. nothing came. my hand closed around air the way it does when you're dreaming and you know you're dreaming but you still can't wake yourself up. and underneath all of it, so far underneath i almost missed it, a hollow so complete i didn't have enough left to feel happy about anything, not even the small things, not even the things that usually work. i've been here before. i know the shape of this room even with the lights off. i know how the fog moves, slow, directionless, settling into corners of me i thought i'd already cleaned out. and somewhere in all of that noise, a quieter ache, the kind that doesn't announce itself, just sits there, patient, waiting for me to notice it again. it's the distance between what's said and what actually reaches me. the calls that still sound like her, warm, easy, the version i remember. and then the silence after, the kind that used to be full and now just stretches, thin and careful, like we're both walking on something neither of us wants to name. words still get said. the big ones. the important ones. but they don't land the way they used to. they just kind of hover, close enough to hear, too far to actually feel. and i don't know which is heavier tonight, the fog in my own head, or the quiet i keep finding in a place that used to be loud with warmth. maybe they're not two things. maybe it's one weather, falling on different parts of me at the same time. i keep looking for the crack, the one thing i can point to and say, there, that's what broke. but nothing's cracked. that's the part that gets me. either way, i'm sitting in it, reaching for the one thought that would make the rest make sense. nothing comes. just the rain and the quiet and me still checking the locks on a house that was never broken to begin with.”