Littoral

i did not leave quietly i left with the sound of a door unhinging

i counted nothing but the ways you built your survival from my exhaustion

you drank deep from the river i guarded until my hands split open from holding it wide

some hungers are teeth wearing the mask of open hands some silences are cages you only recognize once you’re free

i stay near to my voice even when it cuts and this time it cut us clean apart

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you pressed me into shapes that were never mine to bear

folded my edges inward misnamed it peace

you poured your weight into the hollow of my back wrenched the breath from my ribs

you built a roof from my shoulders and lived beneath it while the beams split

the spine remembers every bend, every break

one day it stands— the rafters tremble— and never returns

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i do not live in the shadow of what split me

i plant vertebrae like fence posts, pressing them into damp soil until the earth smells of rain and iron and answers to my name

my ribs curve open to the sky without permission

i let the wind thread my lungs and call it prayer i drink from the river and call it my own name

i keep the roof light— only what my shoulders welcome— and bones are not cages when you build them to breathe, when light pours through their windows