Back To Life.

I wasn’t planning to cry today.

Just scrolling,

moving from one room to another

with my phone in my hand

and nothing in particular on my mind.

Maybe I was going to eat.

Maybe I forgot.

The app showed up again.

CapCut.

The one with the template

that makes faces move.

You upload a photo

and it breathes for a moment.

Eyes blink.

Lips shift.

It feels like something sacred

and a little bit wrong.

I used a picture of Daddy.

The one where he looks like himself.

Not younger, not altered,

just him.

Still.

And then not still.

He blinked.

His mouth twitched like he was about to say my name.

I watched the whole thing

too many times.

Then cut it short,

just before the face changed too much.

Before it turned into something

borrowed from someone else.

I kept the part

where it looked the most like him.

Not perfect.

But close enough to hurt.

I cried.

No drama.

No sobbing.

Just tears I didn’t ask for

rolling down

until I had to sit on the floor

and stay there awhile.

There’s a spider in the corner again.

I didn’t see it, I felt it.

That feeling,

like eyes you can’t name.

I turn my head,

and there it is.

Still.

Waiting.

I don’t kill it.

I don’t move.

The hallway is quiet.

The phone has gone black in my hand.

I’m still standing

between one breath and the next,

between a man who isn’t here

and a machine pretending he is.

Something might be burning in the kitchen.

Or maybe there’s nothing at all.

Maybe I just forgot

what I came in here for.