this text  
    does not ask to be read  

it asks  
    to be entered  
    to be felt  
    to be mistaken  
        for silence  

every gap  
    is grammar  

every fracture  
    is a sentence  

you are not meant  
    to understand  

you  
    are meant  
        to remain


—

i move—  
    not one,
     not two,
but as the tide
   counts its losses.
  
sometimes, i lean  
    with weight that guards.  
sometimes, i lean—  
    with skin that listens.  

i am not between.  
i am both.

    when the room calls,  
    i answer  
    with whichever form  
    feels true.

—

he didn’t ask.
  i didn’t want him to.
no command.
  no silence.
    only the slow
      shift
        of gravity.
the spine
  yielded first.
then
  the breath.
then—

    the idea
      that this
        was ever mine.
he entered—
  not with force,
    but with weight.
and i—
  did not open.
    i let go.
it wasn’t pain.
  but something
    fell
      from me.

or—
  was pulled.

or—
  never
belonged.
i remember the touch
  not as skin,
    but as
      a shift
        in pressure—
          a presence
            that never returned.
he didn’t say
  “mine.”
but i answered
  in the way
    my thigh
      stopped resisting
        the edge
          of being
              used.

—

i didn’t stay
as i.

i remained
as what
they,
   or it,
  or silence
     left in me.

a fold—
 not of cloth,
 but of consent.

the way skin yields
 when held too long.
the way breath
 flattens
  into listening.

what remained
 wasn’t memory—
 but impression.
not thought—
 but weight.

—

my skin—
 a variable
  in someone else's proof.
left unsolved.
  still bleeding ink.

—