I keep moving.
Not even “forward” — just moving, like a rule I can’t stop obeying.
Something in me wants to pile warmth up the way you stack blankets: one animal on another, one weight on another, a whole living heap trying to manufacture a small climate. It’s almost funny, if I look at it from the outside: the improvised architecture of comfort, the body doing logistics. But from inside it’s not funny. It’s survival. It’s the old hope that if I add enough layers, the trembling will look like rest.
There’s a heat signal. Tiny, orange. Not a romance flare — more like a warning light that says: here, here, this is where it still registers. This is where you’re still reachable. I watch it like a scientist watches a stubborn pulse: not believing it, not letting it go.
I notice the way I go “under.” Under the day, under the sentences, under my own face. Under the social layer where I’m supposed to be simple and robust and employable and fine. Under the neat story where things progress. My body prefers “under.” Under is where I can keep the mess without it being visible. Under is where I can keep wanting without having to explain it.
And then the other panel: strange withdrawal. The shape of it is not dramatic; it’s just… turned away. Curled. Hanging. An animal folding itself into a smaller and smaller permission. Antitude — that word hits like a typo that tells the truth. Anti-attitude. No stance. No posture. Just retreat as an internal choreography. The body’s private “no,” performed without speech.
I recognize that move in myself: when I stop reaching not because I’m wise, but because I’m tired of the cost. When I pretend it’s calm, but it’s actually absence. When I call it “distance” as if it’s neutral, as if it’s just a metric on a gauge, near or far, as if I chose it like a setting.
But I didn’t choose it. It happens.
The gauge sits there like a little judge. Near, far. My mind loves instruments. My mind loves anything that looks measurable — as if measuring could replace being held. As if the right number would make contact safe. As if the right number would prevent humiliation.
Meanwhile the animals keep doing what animals do: they rearrange themselves around the heat. They don’t ask permission. They don’t negotiate tone. They just stack, shift, sink, cling. They are honest about needing.
I’m less honest. I try to convert need into movement, into piling, into managing. I try to organize warmth so it doesn’t look like longing. I try to make the wanting appear “functional,” like a small project: build a stack, regulate the heat signal, maintain the distance within acceptable parameters.
And still, the orange dot persists. A small ember that says: you are not finished. You are not frozen. You can still be reached.
So I keep moving — and I keep watching the heat, and the curl, and the measure — and I try, for once, not to turn it into a story that proves anything. Just this: piling and withdrawing. Under and under. Near and far. A tiny signal in the middle saying: alive.