Invisible

I turned it on

and the light came through the window

and suddenly I could see

everything I'd been living under.

The dust had built up

so gradually

that I'd stopped noticing

it was there.

Six months,

maybe longer,

of not looking up,

of the fan just spinning

and collecting

and me walking beneath it

completely unaware.

The film is thick.

Gray.

Visible now that the sun

has decided to show me

what I've been ignoring.

It floats for a second

when the blades move,

suspended,

disturbed,

before it settles back down

onto the same surface

it's been settling on

for half a year.

The fan keeps going.

The dust keeps accumulating.

And I keep living

under this thing

I can't see

until the light is right,

until the angle

is just so,

until something forces me

to look up

at what I've allowed

to gather

above my head.

I could clean it.

I know I should.

But instead I watch it

settle,

watch the light catch it

for one more moment,

watch it become

invisible again

as the sun moves.

There's so much of it.

So much that I've brought into this room

on my clothes,

in my hair,

tracked in from outside,

shed from my own skin,

collected from the air itself.

It's mine.

All of it.

The dust is mine.

And I let it sit there,

accumulating,

unseen,

until the afternoon

reminds me

that I'm living under something

I chose not to notice.