a march of mourning.
they carry the names in cloth,
the weight of what has been done.
downtown tries to pretend it’s still normal.
but we are past normal.
this is not protest.
this is a procession for the dead.
l’art existe.
tucked between brutalist lines and fluorescent shadows.
not a declaration—
a reminder.
of what survives the structure.
of what glows anyway.
even in institutions.
especially in ruins.
walked here with oriol.
afternoon sun too bright to ignore.
the sign said bonjour like it meant something,
but i was already thinking about leaving.
met with malica this week—
potential postdoc supervisor at beniba.
submitted the queen’s predoc application too.
if it all goes through, this might be my last summer here.
the city looked soft in the light—
like it didn’t know i was saying goodbye.
drift doesn’t ask for arrival.
just movement.
just the soft ache of being somewhere you already know how to leave.
i haven’t been back to italian class.
not really a decision—more like a slow unthreading.
at first i missed one, then two.
a message half-drafted. a reminder snoozed.
now it’s just a tab i don’t open.
i think of them sometimes, conjugating without me.
the schwa still soft in my mouth.
still mine, even if unused.
there was no rupture. no reason.
just me, always a little too tired, a little too elsewhere.
it’s not shame. not quite guilt either.
just the shape of absence when you let it stay.
i’ve left so many places like this.
no goodbye, no explanation.
not because it didn’t matter, but because it did—and i couldn’t hold it all.
the leaving isn’t loud.
it’s slow. partial. unfinished.
like language.
like me.
stood there teaching, not to perform,
but to remember.
to speak of what refuses extraction.
to name what pulses under erasure.
black keffiyeh against the chest,
kiki futures on the screen.
the room knew.
not everything had to be said.
some things shimmered between us.