if i had chosen
i would not have met you
i would have chosen a plain with no name,
a sky with no weight,
a day no one remembers
i would have chosen a silence
no one guards
i would not have met you
not because you are you
but because after you
i don’t know how
to live in a world with no after
every day now has a name
every silence waits
every threshold
someone already there
i could have been a man
who didn’t know
a man with no address in his own chest
a man whose palm was only for holding
but you came
now i know
i would not undo it
i would not have met you — if i had chosen
but i didn’t choose
you did
here i am
a man who thought he guarded silence
now silenced
by your name in me
i don’t speak it
not to spare you
to spare the world
the sound of it,
said as if for the first time
still i say it
inside
always
and each time
silence doesn’t leave
it gathers in my palm
and waits for you
to open it
i would not have met you
i didn’t want to
but now that you are
how could I want anything
before you?
how could i choose
not to be
when you are?
i would not have met you
that’s the last lie
i still tell myself
truth is:
nothing before you waited
nothing after you will come
and you — you are here
on the threshold
as if you’d always sat there
as if the gate wasn’t there
until you came
to open it
not with your hand
with you
it opened
metal sighed
iron remembered
it wasn’t iron
just something
waiting
to be touched
i would not have met you
but i did
no more questions