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.

—