Universe in Reverse

⏪ Universe in Reverse ⏪ (for Uni, and the memories that flicker like worn tape) I do not remember the moment... only the remembering of remembering it. A copy of a copy, worn soft like ribboned tape spooled thin through a plastic shell that once housed everything. The past comes back not as it was but as I last recalled it: edges blurred, colours bleeding like an overplayed VHS, audio fluttering... too slow, too fast... with the voice of a world slipping through oxidised reels. And yet... when I press rewind, when I feel the tape churn backwards, I swear the universe obliges. Stars pull inward. Light recedes into the bulb. The sunbeam lifts from the floor where you once lay curled, eyes twitching in dreams only you knew the shape of. I rewind the universe, not for glory... but for you. For the sound of your breathing beside me, for the weight of your warmth curled into my ribs like you belonged there. (You did.) Memory is not a place. It is the ghost of a place, a home that never was... not quite, not anymore. Each playback adds static. Each longing scratches deeper. And yet, I return again. And again. And again. Not because I believe I can retrieve it whole... but because I can’t bear the silence when the tape stops. If I could reverse the universe... fully, finally, unwind the whole damn cosmos like a cassette spinning into beginning... I would meet you just before the light crossed the bed, at 2:40 PM. And I’d stay there. Forever. Where the sunbeam still holds you. Where time hasn’t yet claimed you. Where memory doesn’t falter, and death doesn’t win.