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.

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.

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.

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 dogs come back to the porch they pretended to forget.
(scent instead of fruit. memory instead of love.)


i do not reach.
i remain.
like a field in autumn
where nothing grows
but everything waits.

they come not for the fruit,
but for the scent
of something
that once bloomed.

i am not flame.
i am the cigarette
left burning
in a tired hand.

i do not chase.
but they return
like dogs to the porch
they pretended
to forget.

power is when your silence
makes them speak your name
without knowing why.

⋯

i do not ask.
but i am gathered.
i do not cry out,
but you hear it anyway,
in the way i stay.

shoulders low,
like someone
who belongs to no one
but still hopes.

this body is
a barn
that no longer locks.

you step inside,
and dust forgets
its shame.

don’t call it surrender.
call it evening.
call it a name
too drunk
to spell.

between leash and longing,
there’s a path
back to me.

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 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.

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 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 do not touch. i breathe near enough for you to imagine it.
(somewhere between leash and language  i unlearn hiding.)


i do not touch.
but breath comes close enough
to become memory.

you move,
but it’s your chest
that confesses.

nothing happens,
but your bones shift
like something did.
that’s enough.
that’s control -
the kind you want
to call yours.

my hands stay
where they are.
but the room doesn’t.

you say my name
like an accident.
i answer
like a consequence.

they ask what i am.
i say:
not a man.
not a woman.
not a prayer.
a door that only opens
if you stop asking.

⋯

this is not asking.
this is return.
your shadow pressed
against mine
without needing names

i am not waiting.
i am already yours
in the way silence owns
a scream
that never got out.

don’t call it submission.
call it:
the warmth of being seen
& not corrected.
ƃuᴉʇɔǝɹɹoɔ ʇou &
uǝǝs ƃuᴉǝq ɟo ɯɹɐʍ ǝɥʇ
:ʇᴉ llɐɔ

somewhere between leash
and language
i unlearn hiding.

(this is not a beginning. just the place where names go when no one speaks them.)


i unlearn hiding.
not corrected. just seen.
not yours. already waiting.
a shadow returns
and the breath stays behind.

i do not open
but the door forgets to close.
not a woman.
not a man.
not a shape
you can keep.

the room moved.
my hands did not.
your voice arrived
like a wound with memory.

not stillness
but the collapse
of wanting something
you never asked.

i do not flee.
i remain.
not to be held
but to be
heard.

⋯

this was never control.
it was listening.
it was silence
before it had a name.