An Unwanted Instruction Manual by Ziqr Peehu

If you’re already here, it’s too late.

You’ve run out of nexts to look forward to,

and the present feels like staring at an empty train car

in a city that isn’t yours.

Your first mistake was thinking

movement meant progress.

●

Step one: pretend the clock isn’t watching.

Step two: when the wind catches your breath,

call it your name.

●

I saw a woman slap a child on the bus last week.

Not hard, just enough to let him know

the space he was taking up was borrowed.

She wiped her hands on her jeans after,

like shame could leave fingerprints.

●

Me, to the void: Does it ever get easier?

The void, to me: Try again.

●

At the grocery store, I hold a bruised apple

and feel the weight of it.

The skin gives a little under my thumb,

soft where it shouldn’t be.

I think about taking it anyway,

about how every act of kindness

is also an act of neglect.

I leave it on the shelf

for someone with less patience

to ignore.

●

The thing no one tells you about falling apart

is that it doesn’t always happen all at once.

Sometimes it’s forgetting to buy soap

or watching your favorite mug crack in the sink.

Other times, it’s realizing you’re still holding

a love letter you never sent.

I don’t know what to do with that letter.

Burning it feels performative.

Keeping it feels indulgent.

●

Me, to myself: Isn’t it exhausting?

Myself, back: Only if you notice.

●

Last night, I dreamt of drowning,

but it wasn’t the kind of drowning

you panic about.

It was slow, the water lapping at my collarbones,

each inch rising with the steadiness of regret.

I didn’t struggle. I just let it come.

Woke up coughing anyway.

●

Somewhere across town,

a church bell rings.

Somewhere, a life I didn’t choose

is laughing at me. I forget what it feels like to mean

something to someone until

I see my name in a stranger’s mouth.

Once, at a bus stop,

a man whispered my name,

and I startled like prey,

as though he’d stolen it from me.

It was raining.

It’s always raining when I think of this.

●

In a city I’ve never learned to love,

the laundromat hums with broken machines.

A woman in red socks wipes a spill on the floor.

It’s nothing special, but I’m afraid

if I blink, I’ll forget it ever happened.

I drop my last quarter into the wrong slot

and tell myself it’s fate.

●

I never thought I’d end up here

On a bridge, staring at the river below,

counting the things I’ve never done.

The wind steals my confessions mid-sentence,

as if it knows I don’t deserve to finish them.

●

Pretend you’ve been here before.

The lights will change,

but the crosswalk stays the same.

Mistakes grow roots,

but so do the things we save.

There is enough time

to carry what you can.

____

Ziqr is grieving, yearning and hoping. Their works have appeared in places like Scholastic, Rattle, Trampset among others.