She Does Not Turn Around

Before She Turns

She does not turn,

not yet

as if the body knows

to look

is to surrender.

And love

if that is what this is

refuses the dignity of a name.

It does not arrive.

It infiltrates.

Like music through a wall

too thin to protect you,

it enters the spine first,

not as touch,

but as recognition.

You thought it would be light.

You thought it would open
like mercy,
forgiving,
something you believed
you could survive.

But no.

It is closer to smoke,

something already burning

without permission.

A hunger

that knows exactly…

But a hunger

that knows

where to place itself

to undo you.

The air alters.

Still no touch.

Only that unbearable proximity,

so precise

it begins to map you

from the outside in,

a line drawn

without mercy,

without contact,

without asking.

You could turn.

You don’t.

Because restraint

is the last illusion of control.

And something in you

older than thought

is already leaning toward it.

You understand now:

love is not gentle.

It is ostinato.

What it finds, it enters.

What it enters, it changes.

What it changes

does not return.

And still

she does not turn.

Because she knows

the moment she does

it will not be love that meets her,

but something more ruthless,

more intimate

something that has been waiting

not for her body,

but for her consent

to disappear into it.

Image and Poetry © Gesso Cocteau

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