i wake with the weight of words
that will never leave my lips;

part of me is asking to slip past
and i am just cruel enough to keep it

contained. each second is its own;
is the whole of time. the collection

of seconds is the whole of life.
you must know, i tried. first to let go

to unwind the shame of being held
to find what was asking to be seen; i tried.

i tried too, to force it back in place
if it refused to be released. i attempted

to grow small. left myself
somewhere between. never open, never

cleanly lined; boundaryless and pleading.
the flood comes then; too late, rendered

meaningless. somewhere inside me,
the hard knot of shame finds another way

to tighten. the seconds don’t care; they move on,
pile up. gather together until they too spill over

and time settles into itself with the reminder that life
collects until it ends, and it must not be cut short.

i have not found what was inside me, begging
its release. i’ve found instead a flat swell of time;

enough at least to lay down in, to
relearn the feeling of still.