Where the Laundry Ends

Socks paired by color

Shirts folded neat

Steam from the kettle

Quiet afternoon heat

One hand smoothes a wrinkle

The other holds still

While something inside me

Begins to unspool

Through the closet doorframe, light starts to bend

Not sun through the curtain, but stars without end

An elephant walks where my shoes used to be

Trunk raised to a moon I can't quite believe

I don't move a muscle

But my chest cracks wide

Where the laundry ends

The cosmos begins

Left side, hangers click like clock hands turning

Right side, butterflies tracing constellations burning

I'm standing in both, not choosing a name

For the life that's routine and the dream that feels the same

My towel's still damp on the bathroom rail

But my feet touch cool grass beneath the night veil

The meditating figure that's me, but calmer

No to-do list humming beneath my collar

I stay half

In this in-between

Where the real and unreal

Share the same seam

Laundry scent

Clearing a cotton wool

Elephants wading

Through galaxies cool

I'm folding the date

I'm folding the sky

One world in my hands

One world in my sight

Maybe home isn't walls or coordinates drawn

But the courage to hold two true sad ones

That I need the order

And I need the

Left side, hangers click, light clock hands turning

Right side, butterflies tracing, constellations burning

I'm standing in both not choosing a name

For the life that's routine and a dream that feels sane

The dream that feels sane