The Smallest Everything

I am childless which I pronounce as motherless because I still see small boys learning to mouth
my name with their arms.

To be the coat for a life of winters.

Arms clinging to my neck at night—just a little more story,

just a little more of this day because there was only ever this day. That never-get-back now
trapped in photographs left to delete, as if this way of being doesn’t happen on its own.

Their smell is gone. I disappeared.

Zeroed out from the everyday without warning.
I will never know what stealing feels like. This is a guess. This is my liar face but however
abandonment happens, I am the liar. Forced into that face. The unexplainable ways of love.

The smallest everything deserves a warning. If you are still reading
about magicians and building a better monster,

I am sorry. I am wombless. I am your tribe.
Once you are loved, you are broken in this way.

You had a nightmare and made me promise I would never die.