the symmetry felt like a question   no one was answering.

no one else on the platform.   just the hum of something approaching   but not yet here.

sometimes the wait stretches   longer than the journey.   sometimes the quiet   is what stays with you.

#washingtondc #drift #surfaces #fragments #traces

i sat and cried.   not loudly.   just enough to feel it leave my body   a little at a time.

an older woman beside me   was crying too.   i passed her a tissue.   we didn’t speak.

above us: the water fell,   the light held.   a circle that didn’t ask anything from us.

grief moved between strangers.   not for explanation.   not for closure.   just to be felt   together.

#washingtondc #drift #holdings #blackness #fragments #surfaces

left lisbon.   mozambique.   maranhão.

it’s written cleanly,   like logistics.   like movement is neutral.

but this isn’t a voyage.   it’s a structure.

i stood in dc,   beneath that sentence carved into the wall,   and felt how small   archives can make the wound.

western cape archives, south africa.   reference number.   no names.

the record survives.   the people were meant not to.

#washingtondc #traces #blackness #fragments #refusals #drift