i didn’t find words.
i found
 vibrations
  in my throat
   like wings
    that forgot
     how to fly.

what came out
 wasn’t i.
it was
 a tremble
  that touched air
   but didn’t mean.

you asked
and i
 opened my mouth
  like a wound,
   not to speak,
   but to resonate.

every syllable
 was borrowed.
every vowel
 carried
  the ghost
   of weight
    once held
     in silence.

i wasn’t saying.
i was
 letting
  go.

i was
 letting
  you
   hear
    how unformed
     a voice
      can be.
—

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

—

Today I listened as a friend tried to play the Moonlight Sonata.
He played uncertainly,  just a few chords, and those a little shaky.
But suddenly I heard it differently.

Not as an unskilled attempt, but as a miniature.
A ****** memory of the sonata.
Not precise, not finished -
but honest.

As if he wasn’t playing it
but letting it sound through himself, through the “I not-I.”
And this fragile form, where each note is almost there,
turned out to be more real than perfect performance.

Every attempt was like a joke,
every chord a trace of a touch.

And maybe that’s how the Moonlight sounds,
when no one tries to play it,
but simply lets it be.

There is a kind of silence
that doesn’t wait.
It doesn’t reach for the note.
It doesn’t mourn its absence.
It simply is -
like the air between breath and exhale.

This book lives there.

In that pause,
 where listening becomes more than hearing.
In that moment,
 where the body catches something
 the mind missed.
In the attempt to hold a feeling still
 and in the ache
 that proves it was there.

Words will be written here.
Not because they succeed,
but because they remember the sound
 of almost remembering.

This is not a theory of music.
Not a philosophy of art.
Not a map of feeling.

It’s just what remains
 when sound passes through you
 and leaves a shape behind.

i didn’t name it.
 it arrived.

not as pain.
not as form.
but
 as
  unfolding.

the body
 didn’t respond.
it recognized
 a grammar
  older than voice.

i was not afraid.
but fear
 took shape
  inside my knees.

i let it
 not to resist,
 but to witness.

knowing
 is always
  too late.

i stood
 not as ending,
 but as
  not knowing
   how
   to stay
    without form.

sometimes,
 you walk through
  your own skin
   like it’s someone else’s hallway.

and the floor
 doesn’t explain
  what it holds.

—

he tries to play the Moonlight.
or ... almost.
only the beginning.
only a trace.

the sonata
in uncertain hands is
like a whisper
afraid of itself.

but in that awkwardness
there's the whole truth.

not precision,
but body.
not mastery,
but contact.

it’s not him playing,
but more like “I not-I.”
and the music
recognizes itself
in every imprecise touch.

maybe
this is how
a true sonata sounds:
in attempt,
in jest,
in fragile almost.

after is not peace.
it’s
 a hum
  in places
   you thought
    had closed.

nothing leaks.
but nothing seals.

i sit,
and the weight
 remembers
a rhythm
 i didn’t choose.

no name remains.
but something down
  my back
   hummed a shape
   like it once bent
    for someone else’s pleasure.

i touch myself
 not to feel,
but to ask
 was this
  always
   me?

my hand finds
 the imprint
  of them,
   or it,
    or the floor.

and nothing
 pushes it away.

—

i do not ask. but when you reach  i do not move away.
(this is not permission. this is remembering together.)


i do not touch.
only allow trembling.

i do not move away
and that
becomes gravity.

they come not for voice,
but for silence
that means:
you may.

i am not fire.
i am the match
left on the table.
but someone
always
strikes.

i do not chase.
but when they run,
they circle back.
like orbit,
like echo
that finds its mouth
in mine.

what is control,
if not stillness
others collapse against?

what is power,
if not the refusal
to explain?

their knees -
a question.
my glance -
a sentence.

no,  not cruelty.
not desire.
only this:
that inside my calm,
someone else
burns
to be undone.

⋯

i do not ask.
but you (didn’t you?)
press against need
like a name
forgotten on purpose.

this body —
a draft of something
not owned,
but used.

you think it’s hunger.
but it’s shape.
the way a leash
makes a neck feel
like a sentence
finally written.

there is nothing ******
in surrender,
until someone says a name
as if it were a command.

this is not identity.
this is a wound
wrapped in want,
breathing
for permission.

don’t call it shame.
call it: structure.
call it: shape my silence.
call it: the architecture
of ache.

somewhere
between need and leash,
something
becomes recognizable.

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.

—

it’s not desire. it’s space that wants company.
(this body is not mine, but swaying gently, if you lie down.)


i don’t command.  
i’m just here,  
like the sun.  

you’ll burn,  
if you want.

i don’t move,  
but your hands  
would recognize  
waiting.  

i’m not fire.  
i remember it.

i don’t run after love.
i light a cigarette
and look at the road.
it curves.
they come back.

power?
just being the place
someone wants to stay.

⋯

i don’t ask.
but you hold me anyway.
like a song
stuck in your head
from a summer
you miss.

this body isn’t mine.
it’s just a hammock,
swaying
if you lie down
gently.

you think it’s desire,
but it’s just space
that wants company,
and still
the knife remembers its ribs.

don’t call it weakness.
call it wine.
call it the warm step
to someone’s door.

in the gap
between want and yes,
there’s a body
wanting to be familiar.

i didn’t rise  
 to answer.  
i stood  
 because collapse  
  is also  
   a choice.  

the body  
 wasn’t armor  
 but it refused  
 to open.  

i wasn’t asked  
 to stay  
i chose  
  the shape  
   that didn’t fall.  

some breath  
  is a shield  
   not a tremble.  

touch  
  doesn’t reach  
   until i  
    pull back the edge.  

not all  
  openings  
   are soft.  
some  
  are stance.


—

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.

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 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.

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.

—

this is not identity. it’s a diagram that breathes.
(not power through command, but through recognition of shape.)


i do not command.
i articulate.

the body follows
not because it’s told,
but because it recognizes
structure.

they kneel,
not for worship,
but to mirror
the architecture
of yes.

i am not fire.
i am the map
of something waiting to burn.

control is the stillness
around which others orbit,
not out of need,
but out of design.

⋯

you do not ask.
you conform.
not from fear,
but because the shape
was always yours.

this isn’t identity.
this is geometry.
this is a blueprint
that breathes.

you do not want
to be owned.
you want to be read
like an ancient diagram
of intention.

don’t call it shame.
call it structure.
call it echo
rendered in flesh.

between leash and longing is
symmetry.

i am the outline. they find their shape inside me.
(the coal after the fire. the ritual of holding without hands.)


i am not a hand.
i am the echo
of grip.


they do not touch me.
they find
their shape
in my outline.


i am not the fire.
i am the coal
after breath
has left.


i do not chase.
i wait,
as ash waits
to be mistaken
for something solid.


power is the bone
that does not ask
to be buried.


⋯


you are not asking.
you are carving.
your form presses
without pressing.


your body is
a breath dressed as body.


you wear the leash,
but only to learn
its song.


don’t call it anything.
just leave it where it trembles.


between hunger and hold is
ritual.

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.

—

sitting  
  is never stillness.  
it happens  
  between gravity  
    and giving in.

the floor  
  remembers your knees  
not as form,  
  but as  
    insistence.

pressure  
  is not gesture.  
pressure  
     rewrites the body
into a map
of its own erosion.

your body  
  is not placed,  
    it is  
      disturbed  
        into language.

chair  
  is not stable.  
floor  
  is not support.

you sit   
  and become  
    a site  
      of folding.

collapse  
  is not  
    failure.  
it is  
  a different  
    syntax  
      of presence.

—

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.

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

there was  
  no contour.  
only  
  weight.  

and the way  
  skin  
    gave way 
like fabric  
    stretched  
      too long.

i lie down,  
  not as body,  
    but as  
      the dent  
        left in a mattress  
          after someone dreams  
            and leaves.
  

the knees  
  are not mine.  
but something splits  
  inside -  
    not pain,  
      but the hush  
        trees give  
          when they witness  
            disappearance.

a hand brushes  
  the thigh.  
not a gesture,  
  but a question  
    folded into warmth,  
      a seam of skin  
        waiting  
          to answer.

you don’t ask  
  who i am.  
your silence  
  already decides.  
and i  
  let it.

maybe i was.  
maybe  
  i unraveled  
    before you looked.  
maybe  
  just the echo  
    stayed.

in that moment  
  between breath  
    and the pull of absence,  
i stopped  
  being  
    a name.  
i became
  not flesh,  
  but surface:  
    where memory  
      meets forgetting.
             like the fabric
                    that still holds
                           the shape
                                 of someone
                                            gone.


—

this isn’t voice.
it’s what’s left
when breath forgets
the shape it was meant to hold.

i am
  not a subject.
  not a thought.
  not a name
    shaped for the world.

i am
  the dent
    in the sofa
      where a body
        once sighed
          and forgot to rise.

i am
  the shape left
    not by hands,
      but by the air
        that refused
          to hold it.

touch
  is not arrival,
  it is the echo
    of the shape
      i no longer am.

my skin
  does not seek understanding.
  it does not perform.
  it bends,
  soft and warm,
    inviting nothing
      and nothing
        but its own undoing.

dont look for me.
im not missing.
see,
i’m already etched
  into the floor
    whose name
      you never spoke.

sometimes,
  the floor / whose name / you never spoke /
    suddenly / laughs / in splinters.


—