Pattern Interrupts

The Art of Disorientation

A collection of poetic fragments meant to stir sensation, unravel fixed meanings, and inviting a tender space between knowing and not knowing. Each piece resists resolution and asks to be felt rather than understood.

“The Door Wasn't There Until I Knocked”

There was a hallway I never remembered walking down.
The floor was soft, like moss made of forgotten conversations.
A wind whispered names I hadn’t grown into yet.
I reached for the handle, but there was no door.
Only a hinge.
Swinging.

I felt joy and panic and neither were mine.
Something inside me wanted to ask,
“Is this healing or dissolving?”
But the moment answered with a smell.
Cinnamon and static.

“The Lover Who Spoke in Maps”

They arrived at dawn, barefoot and smiling,
with a scroll made of skin and riverwater.
“This is where I last found you,” they said,
tracing a spiral near my ribs.
“You were buried under your own name.”

I asked for a compass.
They handed me a seashell.
I listened. It sounded like goodbye.
Or maybe directions.
Or maybe both.

We kissed once—
not as people,
but as coordinates collapsing.

“Instructions Left by a Bird”

I found a note tied to my ankle.
In my own handwriting.
It read:
“When the feathers start falling,
don’t look up.”

So I didn’t.
Instead, I walked backward through a field
of apologies I hadn’t made yet.

A crow offered me a mirror.
I asked, “Is it true?”
The mirror blinked.
Then flew away.

I still don’t know what the message meant.
But every time I forget it,
my left foot itches.

“Things That Echo in Silence”

I sat beside a star that hadn’t fallen yet.
It was humming something that sounded like my childhood.

“What happens if you land?” I asked.
It pulsed.
“What happens if you don’t?”

The sky around us folded like fabric.
I remembered a voice I’d never heard
saying,
“You’re not late. You’re just bright.”

Then I blinked,
and the star was a streetlight.
And the hum was a fridge.
But my body still felt warm
where the question had touched me.

“The Furniture of Dreams”

There was a chair in the middle of the lake.
Not floating. Not sinking.
Just… there.
I sat down. The water didn’t mind.

Around me: fog.
Above me: the sound of memory dripping.
Below me: the pressure of everything I’ve never said.

I opened my mouth to sing
but the song came out in colors.
Mauve, mostly.

A hand touched my shoulder.
I turned around.
It was mine.

“The Oracle Forgot Her Lines”

She opened her mouth to speak fate,
but coughed up rose petals instead.
They landed at my feet, spelling nothing.

I asked, “What should I do?”

She smiled like a riddle,
then wandered off mumbling,
“I used to know that one…”

A bell rang in the distance,
and the silence bowed politely.

“The Plant That Grew From a Lie”

I planted the sentence just to see what would happen.
“I’m fine.”

By morning, it had sprouted teeth.
By evening, blossoms of unmet need.

When I tried to prune it,
it whispered things my mother once said.

I let it grow wild after that.
Every night it rearranges my dreams.

“The Mirror That Didn’t Reflect”

At first I thought it was broken.
I stood in front of it, expectant.
Nothing.

No face. No echo. No judgment.

Just a space where being could stretch.
Where I wasn’t a person,
but a pause.

I visit it often.
We don’t say much.

“The Clock That Counted Sideways”

It ticked like a heartbeat,
but the hands pointed inward.

Twelve o’clock became a memory.
Three o’clock, a smell.
Midnight: déjà vu.

Time didn’t pass—
it curled.

Sometimes I look at my wrist
and feel older on just one side.

“Letter to the One Who Was Never Coming”

Dear phantom,

I saved you a seat.

It’s been years. Or minutes.
I can’t tell anymore.

I’ve stopped waiting, mostly.
But sometimes, when the wind stutters, I pour a second cup of tea.

Just in case.