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.