If I make the walls sharp,
maybe no one will lean in.
If I salt the earth of my name,
maybe no one will try to stay.

I leave my warmth in pieces
just enough to haunt,
never enough to hold.

I speak in riddles
and scatter my silences
like traps in the underbrush,
as if love were a hunter
I could outsmart.

Better they flinch early,
before they learn the language
of my breaking.

Better they run
before I watch them
walk.