Before I left, a vase broke.

Before that, a suitcase, hastily packed. Everyone thought it was about things, but I knew — it was about me.

When I came back from Florida, not a single object found its place again. Half the flowers had withered. The water in the bowl had turned green, a thin bright film spreading across it. In me, nothing moved.

The apartment held the cold of an unopened room. Dust on the table. The kettle where I had left it. My own coat on the chair like someone else’s.

You know, I keep thinking about that vase. About the fragments it broke into.

It feels like that was me.