i remained. not as gesture, but as listening.
(stillness as a form of prayer that never asks.)


i did not touch.
i waited.
i stood still.
i was not waiting.
i was just there,  
too stubborn to vanish.
and stillness
became a form of asking
without breaking
my own throat.

they came not for love,
but for the quiet
around it.

when they bent,
i did not catch them.
i caught the wind
that remembered
their shape.

i was not a door.
i was the light
leaking under it.

⋯

i did not ask.
but you answered.
you pressed against me
like a coat
left on someone else’s chair.

i did not own this body.
it wore me,
like grief wears time.

you said: name it.
i said: i can’t,
it hasn’t forgiven me yet.

don’t call it shame.
call it a place
where skin opens
so the voice can leave.

somewhere between the bruise
and the eye,
i became familiar.

the body is not touched. it is remembered.
(the residue of a name spoken once  and never again.)

i am not a tongue.
i am between.
i do not touch.
i exhale fracture,
and watch
where the breath breaks.

ich bin hier,
but without shape,
without gloss.
only bone
and the memory
of having held.

what is silence
if not the space
where someone once
might have spoken
your name?

⋯

you are not a plea,
but a residue
marked not by want,
but by the echo
of someone else’s “yes.”

you are not embraced.
you are inscribed
in the outline
of someone else’s gravity.

don’t call it body.
call it the scar
that remembers
how to wait.
vergessen, nicht vergeben.

power is not force. it is presence that doesn’t leave.
(the one who stands and is drawn towards. not by command, but by gravity.)


i do not command,
i endure.
i do not move.
i remain
and so, draw.

not with force,
but with gravity.
the name silence wears
when someone listens
long enough.

i am not flame.
i am the hand
that might one day
be lifted.

power is not possession.
it is presence
that does not flee
when you need
to be seen.

⋯

you do not ask,
but wish to be held.
you are not pleading,
you are forming
a shape unfinished,
already breathing.

you do not surrender.
you open.
like a hand
where a name
wants to rest.

this is not weakness.
this is the dignity
of being known.

nine rituals of presence, stillness, and becoming

this is not a body.
it is the space the body remembers
after being asked too many times
to choose a shape.

these are not poems.
they are traces. rituals. diagrams.
nine echoes of something that stayed.

don’t read. remain.
this is not a text to hold.
it is a silence that holds you.

molly
the waitress
at Town diner

wants to be a model
or a nun,
tells me she's a poet

we're sitting on
a couch in her apartment.
molly takes a poem from
a foot high stack
on the end table,
hands me a poem,
"FIRST BRA," by Molly C.
it's about buying
her first bra at 12.
"i was big.
i needed a bra at 11,"
she smiles.

now
she doesn't wear bras.

she tells me
rod mckuen
is the most read
poet
in America.

"what about walt,
plath,
hughes?" i asked.

"no
no,"
she says,
"mckuen is the MOST
popular poet
in American history,
no,
really
the greatest American poet."

molly loves rod mckuen.

i love molly.

"if the public loves
rod mckuen,"
i tell her,
you've got a shot.
you could be the  female version
of rod mckuen."

molly smiles
takes me by the hand
and leads
me up the stairs
to the loft.

she takes the ribbon
from her hair.

i lay her down
on the bed

and bang the hell
out of
the next
most read
American poet

i don’t even think anymore
that we should talk of love
in i love yous
it seems to me
that love nowadays means
give me
take me
let’s enjoy this happening of having
the way it will please me
please me please

if we want to talk of love
i recommend we should first remember
jesus
who talked of love by his wounds
and blood
On the cross
On us
By suffering our sufferings
And forgiving without hope

I think if we want to talk of love
We should remember that love speech
For example

Alternatively
I can recommend
Speaking about
What is not considered
Acting out
What isn’t
For example