i didn’t grip.
i shaped
 my palms
  around
   your not-staying.

holding
 is not possession.
it’s
  a grammar
   of remaining
    without demand.

you leaned into me
 like rain
  leans into a roof,
not to break,
 but to respond.

my arms
 weren’t enough.
they bent,
 but didn’t
  keep.

the syntax was wrong.
not i hold you.
not you held me.
but
 there was
  a space
   that held
    our unforming.

—

they asked nothing.
still
 i answered.

not in word,
 but in the shift
  of weight,
  the arch
  in my back,
  the unguarded thigh.

it wasn’t language.
 it was consent,
  folded inward.

not yes.
not no.

silence
 ruptures
  when held too long.

what they took,
 they didn’t name.
but i
 answered
  in posture.

—

the body forgets pain
  before it forgets touch.
what stays
  is not the hand
   but its afterimage.

—

i wasn’t touched.
 i was remembered.

your hand
 didn’t arrive,
  it replayed.

my skin
  wasn’t a place.
   it was
    what lingered
      after
       you left.

i didn’t move.
i echoed
   what once
    moved through me.

no pain.
no heat.
just
  what remains.
   the slow witness
    of not-me.

i am not this body.
i am
  the bruise
   that remembers
     your forgetting.

this skin
  isn’t mine.
it holds
  your shape
   better
    than i do.

no voice reached me.  
but i steadied.  
 not out of fear,  
 but to return  
  to the line  
   i vanish from  
    when i go soft.

i didn’t stay
  as i.
i stayed
  as what he //
   or it
    or silence
      left in me.

—

not indecision,
     but the way skin flinches
     before you touch
        probability
         folded
         into the shape
         of silence.

—

refusal
 is not retreat.
it is
 a contour
  drawn
    between
      two open hands.


—

don’t
 touch me.
not because
  i break,
but because
  i forget
    where i end.


your hand
  doesn’t hurt.
but it
    shifts
  the lines
    between skin
      and silence.


i want
 to be
  held,
    but not taken.

i want
     the warmth
      without the aftersound.


when you
  touch,
    i disappear
      into the outline
        of your want.


i reach back
  not to stop
    but to
      delay.

to fold
  the moment
    before it
      becomes
        mine.


touch me
  but only
    as question.

never
  as name.


—