What Stops Holding You

The watch slides over now.

I could pull it off without undoing the clasp,

just slip it past the bone.

There's space there. A gap.

Light moves through it

the way it would move through an open door,

the way it moves through things

that are already leaving.

Six months ago it caught.

Sat tight against my skin.

Now I'm learning a different kind of tightness—

the kind that comes from letting go

of things you didn't know

you were holding.

I keep fastening it anyway.

Hoping today it will catch.

Hoping my wrist will remember

how to fill the space

it left behind.

But the watch face keeps catching light

through the hollow,

and I keep watching it,

and nothing changes except

the way I see myself.

The way the light sees me.

Small. Disappearing. Caught

between what I was

and what I'm becoming

when no one's looking.