Unsettled

immediately

you unsettled me.

the room tipped and i slipped, sliding across a worn carnival ride, pressed to your side in the instant that became forever.

a well-worn orbit, the familiarity of my own weight, the direction known as up—

in the one quick minute i forgot to resist, you dismantled me, unset every snare, rewrote yourself into me, past, present, and future. i built a home in your first stare; felt lost everywhere outside it.

when i went up in flames, you gathered ashes and still whispered “beauty” to them; taught me to mark my face for battle, to stand soot-stained and fight. to lose.

i never long for that cold planet— the distant world that knew nothing of you, where “gravity” lived, and “up,” and “down;”

it’s all-or-nothing and i’m fresh out of nothing; i wouldn’t surrender a second of your first-look love

for all the settled world.