I file everything away. Lately I wonder if that's just a way of not holding it.

Been keeping field notes on the hums of this city for years — the 4am bus brake, the water pipes, the fridge in the next apartment. I thought I was cataloguing my life. Now I'm not so sure. There's a difference between noting that something mattered and actually letting it matter, and I'm starting to suspect I built the archive precisely so I'd never have to touch the objects inside it. The hums are asking me something these days, and I'm pretending not to hear them.