your lips are sealed but your heart is open

they say your name
but they don’t mean it
or at least
it doesn’t mean the same thing
to them
as it does to me

all the real names
go unspoken
like the space
between breaths

we call each other
words
that our mouths
will remember

there’s a shape
to most things
and that’s how
we understand them

but the things
we really need to get
have no shape at all

you have a name
but it’s not one
that’s ever been written
or said
except to yourself

and to me
that one time
in predawn exposure

when you showed me
what you had been hiding
without ever knowing
it was there

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