I did not let go.

I curled tighter – 

like a root wrapping around a fence post.

He said it was freedom,

but it smelled like tin and last night’s corner-store merlot.

What leaves me

does not drift – 

it stains.

The grip wasn’t mine / 

it was the pulse

between my thighs

when I stopped naming things.

I made a shrine of the mess:

a cracked vial of vetiver,

his dog tags,

a stick of palo santo I never lit.

Don’t speak to me of meant-to-be.

Some of us aren’t becoming / 

we’re surviving

on what didn’t leave.