In the Kaleidoscope’s Wake

A spark beneath my ribs ignites, a whisper of heat unraveling the threads of now. I close my eyes, and the world fractures into prisms, time dripping like candle wax from the edges of an unbound clock. Through the eye of a needle, I am drawn, not sewn but scattered, stitched into the breath of a thousand colors. The shadows twist into spectrums that never lived beneath the sun. The air hums, its song painting rivers across my skin, each note a vein of light. I walk roads that ripple beneath my feet, the ground both near and immeasurable, each step carving stars into the dark fabric of a universe I am both creating and consuming. Galaxies bloom like wildflowers, their whispers brushing against me— secrets older than silence, lighter than thought. Figures emerge in the kaleidoscope’s dance, shadows with faces carved from possibility. They move beside me without speaking, yet I feel their laughter, taste their memories in the air. We are passengers together, woven into the same thread of endlessness. The walls of the cosmos peel back to reveal something not seen, but felt— a rhythm pulsing beneath the surface of being, a kaleidoscope spinning inside my chest, its patterns flowing into my breath. I dissolve, becoming the ocean’s sigh, the roots of an ancient tree trembling underground, the horizon as it takes its first quivering inhale. But the tide shifts, a soft pull that calls me home. Gravity gathers me gently, and the pieces of me— now stretched, now infinite— fold back into this body, this skin that feels like a stranger wearing my name. Yet something lingers— a spark that glows beneath the ribs, a quiet ember breathing reminders of where I have been and the places still waiting when the kaleidoscope spins again.