How to Disappear.

First -

Unbutton the light.

Let it slide off your shoulders

like a coat you were never meant to carry

into summer.

Step sideways.

Not forward, not back,

Sideways -

Into the part of the woods

that forgets how to echo your name.

Call yourself anything.

Call yourself gone.

Leave your shoes on the porch.

Let the dirt know you by skin.

Let the ground recognize you

as something returning.

Breathe like the ferns do.

open

close

open

close

Don‘t call it breathing.

Call it forgiving.

Bring nothing but the ache

in the shape of your mother’s voice when she spoke your name

like it was the last stuttering candle in the room.

Walk until the hurt becomes a compass.

Follow it

like a dog with his ribs showing.

You don’t need a destination,

Only the leaving.

If you find a stream,

drink like it remembers you.

If you find silence,

wear it like a shroud.

Say:

I was never here.

I was never here.

Say it until your bones stop arguing with gravity.

Say it until your fingers become dust.

Peel off your voice

and offer it to the birds.

They’ll build nests from it.

They’ll build something better than words.

Climb into your body like it’s a room

you were told not to enter.

(look around anyway).

Hold up every regret

you’ve folded into paper animals.

light a match.

If a memory begs to be touched,

kneel.

Place your hands flat on the earth.

Let it pass through you.

Let it have its say without making it gospel.

I was never here.

Say it to the moon,

until she nods.

Say it to your reflection

until she leaves the water

without you.

And when you disappear -

because you will -

disappear like a hymn

half-whispered

by someone who never believed in God

but sang anyway.