Damage As Instruction

My body learned you
as one learns weather
by injury.

Not gently.
Not once.

You arrived like a doctrine
I did not consent to
and obeyed anyway.

Something in me
recognized the damage
as instruction.

I have always been fluent
in what costs me.

When you touched me
Time loosened its grip
forgot its arithmetic.
Hours bled into each other
like saints with no names.

I mistook the ache
for mercy.

I mistook endurance
for being chosen.

There is a kind of love
that does not ask
to be lived through.
It inhabits.
It brands.

Even now
My bones tilt toward you
as if gravity were personal.

I carry your absence
The way cathedrals carry smoke
long after the candles are gone.

Every room I enter
measures itself against your leaving.
Every silence
has your dimensions.

Do not mistake this
for longing alone.
This is aftermath.

This is what remains
When devotion survives
The body it was built for.

I do not ask
to be released.
I have learned
what survives burning.

I am still here.