Cancer

The private rules you follow without explaining them to anyone else are promises you made to a version of yourself that still lives in your hands. You reach for the same coffee mug each morning, take the long way home on Tuesdays, keep your keys in the left pocket always. These small consistencies are how you stay recognizable to the person you were before you learned to edit yourself for other people. The rule itself matters less than the keeping of it, the way your fingers know exactly where to reach without your head getting involved.