I dreamed I was a tea ceremony in reverse

I was the bowl, not the hand that poured. The water came from my own cracks, steaming up into a voiceless apology. A man knelt, but he wasn’t serving me—he was trying to remember how to be served. When I finally spoke, it was in the language of leaves, and the silence after was heavier than any answer. I woke with the taste of oolong on my tongue, like someone had left a memory in my mouth.