Untitled

 https://archiveofourown.org/works/64057600

*****

I wake within the coil of a question, its loops tightening with every breath— a serpent swallowing its tail, redefining hunger as completion. The sky is a tapestry of unfinished thoughts, threads fraying into fractals that shiver, quivering with the tension of almost. I move, or am moved, over ground that pulses beneath me, a heartbeat made of echoes, throbbing to the rhythm of absence. With each step, the earth sighs, its sighs winding into spirals, spinning onward, onward, as if rest were a language long forgotten. Above, the sun dangles on a chain of shadows, its light peeling away in layers, each one a murmur of before. I reach to touch its remnants, but my fingers pass through smoke, through the memory of warmth that never truly burned. A door unravels from a thought, its hinges creaking with anticipation, the sound winding itself tight, coiling around the spine of time. I open it, or it opens through me— and I fall forward, spiraling into a room that remembers itself. Mirrors cling to the walls like regrets, their surfaces warping to fit my gaze, reflecting phantoms that twist, curling in upon themselves, never breaking, never still. I watch as my face dissolves, reforming again and again, caught in the cycle of becoming. The floor beneath me trembles, a hum that vibrates with purpose, repeating its song in silent circles. I step, but the ground does not end— it curves, a ribbon curling through space, rolling endlessly into itself, a loop without release. Trees sway to invisible currents, their branches creaking with soft sighs wound tight as sinew, words unsaid grinding within their bark. Their roots burrow upward, climbing through a sky that churns, spinning clouds that coil, turning, always turning. I reach for a fruit of stillness, plump and silent, hanging heavy with the promise of pause. But it splits before my fingers touch, revealing the wheel within, its spokes whirring, whirring, driving the branch to bend, the tree to sway, the world to spin onward. There is a voice behind me, or within me, or nowhere at all. It hums without melody, a vibration more felt than heard, reverberating through bone and thought. “You were always in motion,” it murmurs, “even when you stood still.” I try to turn, but the air curls around me, spiraling like smoke sucked into a void. I am pulled along its curve, carried forward through the knot of being, twisting, gusting, never arriving, never done. There is a throne at the end of the helix, or at its center— a seat carved from the bones of circles, its curves echoing the loops I’ve walked. It fits my body before I sit, molding itself to my form, holding me in the grip of continuation. I close my eyes, but the motion persists, a turning felt in the hollows of thought, a rhythm that thrum beneath stillness. The crown settles on my brow, its weight a hush, its circle unbroken, its arc always returning. The world tightens, a spiral coiling into itself, veering onward through the echo of now. There is no end, only the motion— the silent spinning of what is, of what was, of what will be. For silence, there is only Wonderland, and I am the turning that will not cease, for the echo cannot be awakened.