Nowhere to Land

what do I do with this

please tell me

what does a woman do
when a man can sit in front of her feel everything

and then walk out of it like it never asked anything of him

what do I do with it

when the body won’t settle

when the hands won’t rest

when something in me feels slightly outside of itself

like I’m watching
my own mind
try to make sense of you

of the way you stayed
and didn’t stay

of the way something opened and you closed it
without even touching it

what have you done

no—what has this done

because it sits in me like something unfinished
like something that refuses to find a place

and I keep going back to the same few seconds

the same shift the same moment you became someone else without moving

and I’m here
holding both versions the one who leaned in

And the one
who looked at me after
like nothing had crossed

and it makes me feel

ill

not sick
not broken

just… off

like something in me
knows this mattered

and something in you
wouldn’t stay

and I don’t know
how to put that down

I don’t know
how to return

because —I have left before

I have walked away
from things that broke me

I know how to go

I know how to close a door

but this

this feels like something
I stepped into

that won’t let me out and there’s this thought
I can’t quiet

what if I made it all up

what if it only ever lived
on my side

and still

even with that

I can’t walk away

because I didn’t imagine
the feeling

I felt it—fully

and maybe that’s it

maybe I went all the way in and you didn’t stay there

and now I’m left with something that feels real

but has nowhere to land and tonight —I tried to draw it and my hands trembled

like they knew before I did— what I was touching

and I had to stop

because something in it made me nauseous

like seeing it outside of me

made it undeniable

and now—there’s nowhere to put it back

so I come here to digitally cure myself

and still —it stays awake in me and I keep thinking how can you sleep

how can you sleep
knowing this

or not knowing it at all

how can you close your eyes when something like this

is still moving in me

Nowhere to Land