Resolute with Sweet Collapse.

You thought you had to hold.

That strength was in the grip,

the spine straight,

the face unreadable.

Even in love,

you resisted

being seen

too closely.

You were the room

with one locked drawer.

The water

refusing to boil.

But everything waits

to be softened.

Even you.

It started quietly.

A tremor in the hand.

The voice catching

on nothing.

Then the forgetting

what you came into the room for,

who called last,

what you once said

you’d never forgive.

This was not decay.

It was mercy.

Something loosening

after years of tension.

You wept

not out of sorrow

but relief.

There was a man once

who said: To yield is holy.

You didn’t believe him.

You thought: weakness.

You thought: shame.

But now,

falling gently into the body’s

slow unravel,

you understand.

To collapse sweetly—

not from despair

but from excess:

Too much wanting.

Too much holding in.

So now,

let the knees go.

Let the mouth open.

Let the heart beat out

its crooked rhythm

without correction.

You are not empty.

You are full

of everything that has passed

through you.

Each sorrow

a salt trace.

Each pleasure

a crack in the dam.

To stand, still,

resolute,

as it all rushes in

and over and through:

this is not defeat.

This is the final form

of consent.