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 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.

—

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.


—

he didn’t ask.
  i didn’t want him to.
no command.
  no silence.
    only the slow
      shift
        of gravity.
the spine
  yielded first.
then
  the breath.
then—

    the idea
      that this
        was ever mine.
he entered—
  not with force,
    but with weight.
and i—
  did not open.
    i let go.
it wasn’t pain.
  but something
    fell
      from me.

or—
  was pulled.

or—
  never
belonged.
i remember the touch
  not as skin,
    but as
      a shift
        in pressure—
          a presence
            that never returned.
he didn’t say
  “mine.”
but i answered
  in the way
    my thigh
      stopped resisting
        the edge
          of being
              used.

—

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.

—

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.

—

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

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

—

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 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.

—