The Anatomy of Almost

I exist in the space between before and after—

belonging neither here nor there.

Between an inhale of breath

and gone before you exhale.

I flicker—

not living, not leaving—

a fault in the timeline

where seconds hesitate.

I flitter between memories of now and then,

touching moments like fragile glass,

smudging them with fingerprints

that were never meant to last.

Time does not hold me.

It passes through—

like wind through a ribcage

hollowed by echoes.

I am the almost.

The nearly.

The almost-was and almost-will-be.

A whisper caught

in the throat of existence,

a shadow cast

by a light that hasn’t decided

whether to burn or break.

If you look for me,

look in the pause—

the stillness before the shiver,

the silence before the scream.

I live there.

And if you blink,

I am already memory

~S~