The Ceiling Hummed by Jim Bellamy

THE CEILING HUMMED


The ceiling hummed, a coldframe of evening spread,
A loop that questioned whether time was real;
She felt her thoughts detach, begin to peel—
A script that argued with the scene instead.
The floor dissolved beneath her cautious tread,
A mesh of doubt no footstep could conceal;
She wondered if her grief could even feel,
Or if it only played the part of dread.

The monitors blinked out, then back again,
As though the world were testing its own claim;
She sensed her name detach itself from name,
A file corrupted past what might remain.
The ward became a theory built by pain,
A thesis drafted just to shift the blame;
She walked its halls as lopers after guttered bums,
A wanderer through someone else’s frame.

She touched the bed and felt the moment split—
One version stayed, the other walked away;
She watched herself dissolve into the grey,
A copy failing bit by failing bit.
She whispered of her wedding dress conceived, unlit,
A vow unstitched by what she could not say;
Her lashes burned to ashes for the day,
And steller tears rewrote the edge of it.

She left the room, but not the aftermath;
Her shadow lagged, refusing to align.
The space ahead unspooled its crooked spine,
A maze subtracting her from every path.
She passed the ghosts of buttered sons in wrath,
Their silhouettes refusing to resign;
Yet still she walked, though nothing felt like mine,
A child rewritten by a broken bath.