Metanoia

i hear it in my mother’s voice when she says his name. 

i think she’s telling God. 

does He hear me too? 

She breathes prayer into the evening, her voice drifting upward in thin ribbons, threading itself between the railing and dissolving into the dark where lantern light trembles against glass buildings and boats hum like distant insects moving through sleep. July settles over the river with the taste of warm sugar and rusted water, thick and slow like syrup left too long in the sun. 

She tells me that faith is a kind of returning. Her words are soft and worn like cloth washed too many times. She never says where we are meant to return, only lets the words curl and fade in the air like smoke. 

I sit beside her, tracing slow circles into the cheap glass table we built together, the heat of the day trapped in its glossy surface. Moths throw themselves against the light in quiet desperation, wings tapping the bulb like small, frantic prayers before falling back into the dark. The shorts I hung that morning drip steadily onto the tile, water and dirt swirling together in thin gray lines, the smell of detergent and heat clinging to the air like a thick fur coat. The river keeps moving without asking us 

to follow. Its firm breath fills the silence, and I hold myself still, afraid that even the smallest movement might break whatever fragile mercy is holding this moment together, might shatter her voice before it finishes carrying my name into the sky. 

Morning finds its way in no matter how long I close my eyes, 

something has already begun to leave. 

I pray to return before it’s too late. 

does He hear me yet? 

My mother opens the windows first. She always does. The air slips inside dry and thin, carrying the smell of old paper and river silt, and I turn my face away because I hate breathing it in, hate the way it settles in my throat and stays there all thick and itchy. Dust waits on every surface, gathered along 

the table, the chairs, my bamboo mattress, my grandfather’s pop records and war documentaries, covering everything in a pale, quiet skin that softens the edges of what once mattered. Sometimes I think the dust is trying to keep things safe, wrapping them gently so they don’t fall apart, the way blankets are tucked around sleeping bodies. 

Vinyl sleeves bend at the corners, their colors fading into a dull, futile sweetness, and I imagine his hands pulling them out one by one, the slow crackle of music filling the air, the room still warm with his breathing. I keep my hands still, like the room will wake up and realize he is gone, and the dust will break loose and take whatever is left of him with it. So I let it gather. 

Even this is a form of staying.

returning to mornings that will never come again 

and still, there is something tender 

in returning to the light, in remembering the dark 

and coming back anyway. 

now i watch dust settle 

on things we love 

and think 

some things deserve to rest where they fall.