"And then there are the people who string you along
And put you back when they're done with you
Like a glass in a cupboard...
Who take people out and use them
Like dishes and put them away."
Alencia Lysander

I wanted you to know what I wanted. Impossible. For once
I wanted an object to be skin and bones like a hand that would touch me,
That would touch the back of my neck, brushing up against the slow hairs,
Running down my back and then into the secret spaces,
But bringing me nowhere, just staying with me awhile,
No part of myself. The things that are not me
Do not love me, and they are inscrutable and quick.
They lay themselves across me, for a moment they lie there,
And I think it was something they wanted, something they loved.
It was just a collision. You were just a collision;
You hit me, and there was contact, and there was pain,
And then you ran into another.
But I have a memory that fills up with these things, that fills these things,
And I have words I know to point to them, and they come near me —
You come near me — but not by choice, and not to stay.