i am not a mouth with secrets so big
i can’t stay shut
i am the ears that catch your words falling from the sky or rising up from the ground
i am not hands that paint pictures in the air between us
i am the eyes staring at your paintings as they stare right back

i was raised in these paintings, these secrets, these stories
i sleep between dried paint strokes in stale air that has been hanging between us for years
i breathe in every invisible word that you shoot across the sky like they are comets i must catch and keep in my pocket forever

i am not a writer who leaves fingerprints behind your eyes
i am not a poet who can twist words
into stories that shake your mind
and make your hands tremble

i do not tell stories
i am the one who listens