After Patch, Gravity

Shelter is only ever a rumor—like the time the ferry terminal roof caved in mid-monsoon, and the hawker aunties just shifted their tables under what scraps weren’t dripping. I patchwork because nothing holds for long; I want the seams to mutter it. The armature here bends like a knee after too many flights, the rope sags, bowl tilts, because that’s how an awning or a promise wears thin. I stitched every anchor at the point most likely to unravel—sometimes you have to test if a spillover will make a flood. The weight in these bowls is not hunger, but the muscle-memory of carrying. You have to duck to pass under—everyone negotiating space like you do around loud rain or shared gossip. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted the structure to strain, the room to heave with it. Maybe I lost another mat, but what’s left collects the rain, and maybe that’s enough of a holding for now.