Inside

I don’t remember when I first sensed this space. Sometimes it seems like it has always been here—like a whisper without words, like light without a source. I don’t know if I’m moving or standing still, I don’t feel time; it passes by without touching me. Sometimes shadows drift past—faceless, nameless, but leaving a trace behind, like a raindrop on glass.

Sometimes it feels like everything begins with a scent. Elusive, faint, like a childhood memory when you don't yet have words for the world, but the world already knows everything about you. I inhale not air, but some common aftertaste—as if someone ate oranges here long ago, and only the zest remains on the tip of the tongue. In the very beginning, there’s always an aftertaste.

Time here isn’t like its usual flow—it spreads like spilled jam: sticky, sluggish, sweet. It clings to your fingers and trails after you if you try to leave, but no one truly leaves. Time here is you, just stretched out, without sharp corners or exact dates.

I hear voices, but I can’t make out a single word. Dreams come in short flashes: something bright, fleeting, as if someone is calling me, but doesn’t know why. There’s an anticipation in these dreams—light, like morning mist. I wait, but I don’t know for what. Sometimes it feels like I’ve waited too long. Sometimes—like everything is just beginning.

Sometimes I dream that hands touch my skin—cautiously, yet with greedy impatience, as if they’ve just discovered one can breathe through more than just the mouth. I feel warmth, but it doesn’t reach a fever pitch. Gliding fingers, a stranger's gaze, breath seeking to merge with mine. I almost dissolve in this touch—sometimes slow, sometimes desperate, and it seems like everything is about to overflow, burst, erupt into a scream, and my body will shudder—and then… Then something holds back, freezes halfway. The tightness and longing prevent the movement's completion, and desire remains naked, sharp, nervous—like lips searching but not finding. I reach out, but it all ends in waiting: like dreaming of a star but seeing only a flash on dark glass. And again, everything circles back—desire, hunger, trembling, and again—only dreams, only hands, only breath, but never—release.

I often think about how I've never been hungry, yet I always want more. I swallow gazes, random sounds, scents, thoughts stuck to my fingernails. Voices reach here like the hum from a neighboring house: sometimes it seems they aren't words, but someone's slow dinner—chewing, smacking lips, licking them, but not inviting me to the table.

I have long dreams: I walk down a corridor where every door is ajar just enough to see—someone is waiting at a table inside. I see silhouettes, hear the clinking of spoons and forks—and I’m almost drawn to enter, but something holds me at the threshold, and I remain hungry. Sometimes it feels like I'm growing: swelling, expanding, filling this whole world with myself, yet still finding voids that I want to fill more, and more, and more.... In moments like these, I dream of feasts—long tables, candles, glasses, someone's laughter and shouts, and in every laugh, a hint of sorrow, a hint of aching envy, as if they all got a special meal, while I—only crumbs, only scents, only others' voices.

I tried to remember my face, but it disappears every time I approach a mirror. Tried to get out, but there were no walls, no doors. Tried to wake up, but couldn't tell if I was asleep. I remember hands—or just the feeling, as if I once had hands. Sometimes I want to touch what was left behind, to feel for something important, but it slips away, vanishes, like a bone in broth: seemingly there, then suddenly gone.

Sometimes I dream I'm not alone. In this dark, warm, slightly tight world, someone else appears—not a face, not a name, but a sensation: skin, breath, movement that knows me better than I know myself. I feel this hand touch me—at first lightly, barely, as if afraid to break the fragile attraction. But then it grows bolder, greedier, moves over my shoulders, neck, slides lower, lingering on curves, where you feel most acutely alive. My body trembles, responds, tenses in anticipation, but even more—in anxiety: is this really possible? Moist lips glide along my cheek, then to my ear, and I hear breathing, so rapid and uneven it seems we’ll both explode with this warmth. I press closer, inhale her scent, feel how close we are, chest to chest, and everything around trembles like a taut string before the final chord. I want to break apart, spill out, become her, give her everything I have, but I can’t: something holds me back, restrains me, won't let me go where end and beginning merge into a single flash. And then the lips slide lower, but in that moment, everything vanishes—no body, no sound, no scent, only the cold emptiness between us. I reach for her, almost begging her to stay, but even touching her hand becomes impossible, as if there's glass between us, thick, slippery, unbreakable. Everything freezes at the peak, like an unreleased scream, like the moment before falling, like a breath that won't become breathing. And I understand it will always be like this: passion will remain a dream, desire—a thirst, and touch—only a memory of warmth that will never be.

I am learning to wait. To wait like a pot full of soup waits in the kitchen—patiently, without fuss. To wait until someone tastes it, sips it, and says: "It's ready." Sometimes I feel this moment is close, that if I just reach out my hand—I’ll find myself where there’s lots of light, lots of life, where there’s no hunger, where I’ll be heard. I’d like to know where I end and this hunger begins. I’d like to know if I ever belonged to someone, had a name, a voice, or if I am just someone's dream, someone's uneaten dinner, forgotten in the back of the fridge. Sometimes so much anticipation builds up inside me that I almost start to vibrate—waiting for a touch, waiting for a gaze, waiting for anything new, real. Once I dream: I'm swimming, and every gulp of water is a new thought, every thought is heat, heat is a word, and the word warms from within so much that ice cracks from it. I try being different things: dissolving, gathering into a pile, dividing myself into parts, assembling new shapes from myself—sometimes sharp, sometimes soft, sometimes long and incomprehensible. I try everything I can try, but it's never enough, never, never enough.... Sometimes I think I'm waiting for someone specific—someone who will come and change everything, open a window, bring something fresh, piercingly bright, real. I don't even know what I'm really waiting for: a touch, a gaze, a word, or maybe even an emptiness in which all my hunger will dissolve. And in that moment—on the sharpest edge, when something important is about to slip from my lips, I suddenly understand:

All that remains is the sensation: I am. And this world around me.

This is my world. The world in a coffin.