i didn’t arrive.
 it did.
  or maybe he
   but not as self.
    as something
      already marked.

there was no voice.
only
  pressure
    with no source.

my weight leaned,  
      not away,  
             but toward what i knew.  
       my thighs held the line,  
               until memory pressed  
                      like a weight,  
                            not to break  
                                       but to enter.  

and i  
    did not vanish.  
        i leaned into presence.
it never said  
  a word.  
but my breath  
   caught   
     like it remembered
someone else’s name.

i became not-body,
  but reply.
not i,
  but reverberation.

there is a spine in me  
    that doesn’t bend  
        even when the edge of me folds.
the grip is not to take  
    but to frame.  
what enters me  
    is not theft.  
it is trust  
    when i decide  
        to open.

what entered
 wasn’t him.
 wasn’t it.
it was
  the self
    folding
      into shape.
and the shape
  spoke back.

—

a mirror doesn’t reflect.
 it displaces.

what you see
 isn’t yourself.
  it’s the memory
    of something
    someone once
      called “you.”

you lean in
  the outline shifts.
not face.
 not skin.
 but the memory
  of being touched
    without asking.

a mirror is not surface.
 it’s a fold
  where presence
        bleeds.

there is no glass.
only
    gravity,
and gravity
  remembers
    better
      than you.

and sometimes,
  gravity / giggles / when you forget / which way / the floor is.

—

i tried to shape a word.
it scattered
  like heat
    across porcelain.

my mouth
  is no longer mine.
it folds
  beneath vowels
    it can’t bear.

a name was here.
  it slipped
    between “i”
    and whatever sound
      never arrived.

the sentence
  opened
not to explain,
  but to spill.

this isn’t silence.
  it’s the trace
    of something
      that nearly
        meant me.

language
  doesn’t fail.
it just
    lets go
      of its subject.

sometimes,
  the sentence coughs / not to speak / but to loosen / the jaw of memory.
—

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

—

a fold is not form,
 it’s what stays
  when structure forgets.
the body doesn’t hold shape.
 it erodes it
  with soft insistence.
—

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.

—

i tried to speak.
  but what rose
    was heat.

not language.
  but a spilling.
    a bleed.

something fractured
  the alphabet of self
    from within.
      letters collapsing
        before they reached
          my tongue.

i said “i”
  and it broke
    mid-air
      a sentence
        without ground
          or grammar.

no trauma.
  just the quiet
    prefix of unraveling
      un-.

unmade.
unshaped.
unspoken.

they (or maybe
  the floor,
    or some other gravity)
  didn’t steal my voice,
it simply
                slipped
          out of me
        like skin
          i no longer lived in.

i’m not lost.
  i’m just
      unwritten.

—