By Kerry Ann Wiley
The Space Just Inside the Door
The room held two, yet little passed between.
One stood just inside the doorway—not quite arrived, not yet gone.
The other moved silently, fixing what was never broken.
The movements were not purposeful.
They were only repeated.
There was no greeting and no conversation.
Yet the silence had a shape.
It was not angry.
It was not final.
It was the kind of silence when the unspoken takes hold,
A shift with no name, a truth left untold.
The air did not press—it simply stayed,
Not heavy, not harsh, just quietly laid.
Even waiting bore its own strain.
Instinct Before Intellect
The body registers,
before the mind can explain.
A shift in breath.
A break in rhythm.
Hands reach, then hesitate.
There is a hollow where certainty used to be.
Fingers intertwine, but the hold falters.
Elbows become barricades.
What once felt like home,
became a negotiation of distance.
Touch misfires.
Movement becomes mimicry.
Still, the gestures continue—
not out of connection,
but habit.
Metal strikes metal.
Silence gathers.
It is a ritual,
but one without resolve.
The Weight of a Single Truth
Something is spoken.
It is not loud.
It is not cruel.
It strikes with a clarity that shifts perception.
Perhaps it is a truth.
Perhaps a decision.
It is a line drawn—
not without consequence.
One truth, spoken in the voice of someone
who expected a conversation,
and received a verdict.
The silence that follows
speaks what the words could not.
There is no reply—only the ache
of something recognized too late.
What is carried cannot be shared.
It includes what is chosen,
what is withheld,
and what cracks without falling.
This is not collapse.
It is the slow untying
of something that once held fast.
A pause.
Memory begins where language fails.
What Memory Knows
What follows is not a retelling.
It is a form of holding—
the weight of silence,
sculpted into permanence.
The movement is circular,
echoing the way memory works—
not to change the outcome,
but to understand the shadow it left behind.
When Silence Replaces Shelter
One enters. One remains.
Light flickers. Rain hesitates.
Something arrives—
not words.
There is a hollow where certainty used to be.
Fingers intertwine, but the hold falters.
Elbows become barricades.
Silence gathers.
Metal meets metal.
A ritual, without resolve.
One truth said,
in the voice of someone
who expected a conversation
and got a verdict.
What is carried cannot be shared.
It includes what is chosen,
what is withheld,
and what cracks but does not fall.
Words linger longer than warmth.
Mouths closed like windows
against a storm
that already passed—
or hasn’t yet.
What Lingers After the Storm
This isn’t the first time.
This is grief’s second breath.
Grief, reheated.
Words linger longer than warmth.
What one releases, the other holds.
What one withholds, the other senses—too late.
The knot doesn’t slip free.
It doesn’t tighten.
It simply remains—
drawn loose between what was said and what was not.
Only tension—
quiet, persistent,
unresolved.
The Stillness That Remains
Not every unraveling ends in goodbye.
Some threads stay knotted—
not out of strength,
but because they were never untied.
They hold, even as they fray.
Whatever shifted
has now settled into silence.
It no longer seeks a name—
it only lingers.
What remains
does not speak.
It does not reach.
It does not break.
It stays.
Author’s Note
Knots That Won’t Hold is a quiet meditation on emotional distance—not the kind shaped by conflict, but by silence, hesitation, and the things left unsaid. It traces the slow unraveling of closeness, where presence lingers but connection quietly slips away.
The piece unfolds through memory, gesture, and stillness—where the body often senses what the mind hesitates to name. Much of it lives in the in-between: not quite arrival, not quite departure. Emotional truths aren’t resolved here, but gently revisited. Some knots come loose because they were never meant to hold; others remain, not through force, but through quiet persistence.
At its core, this work lingers in what remains: the weight of silence, the echo of what was nearly spoken, and the stillness that follows when understanding recedes. It offers a soft place to land—for those who’ve lived these silences, and those still learning their language.— K.A. Wiley
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