Undertow IV

I am intact

I repeat this like fact, like law

Still – something tilts

When you appear inside a sentence

Not wanting

Not waiting

Something closer to being marked without consent

My body notices before I do

A flicker, a tightening, as if a wire had been brushed somewhere beneath the skin

You speak, and it is ordinary

So ordinary it unsettles me

Because nothing in you reaches

Yet something in me answers

I refuse it – a future

I deny it – a shape

Still – it lingers

Not asking

Not leaving

And I

I gather myself around it

Contained

Deliberate

Even this betrays me

And still

We remain only what we say

The End