I have never understood
how some people can kiss
and remain continent,
no coastlines redrawn,
no tectonic surrender.
For me, every mouth is a monsoon.
Every pair of hands
leaves behind
a residue of constellation.
I am porous as pumice,
cathedral-thin,
a lung taking in
more than air.
The boy who wore cedarwood cologne
still lingers in the sleeves of my sweaters.
The girl who hummed old jazz
braided herself into my playlists.
Someone else taught my fingers
the delicate angle of a cigarette,
how to hold it
like a secret
between two trembling saints.
I cannot touch without absorption.
Cannot leave without sediment.
My closet is a reliquary.
My throat, an archive of borrowed laughter.
My tears taste faintly
of other people’s salt.
Some call it attachment.
I call it osmosis:
the quiet migration of essence
through the semipermeable membrane
of my ribcage.
How could I survive
a carousel of strangers,
when each goodbye
is an amputation
performed without anesthesia?
I would rattle,
a wind chime made of fingerprints,
clattering with borrowed ghosts.
No,
I am not built for the revolving door.
I am an estuary,
where every river I have loved
empties itself into me
and stays.
I would rather be solitary shoreline
than carry
the brine of a hundred
meaningless seas.