You Inside Me

You still answer the phone in my head

Before I finish dialing a thought.

I hear your sigh at the end of my sentences,

That small click of disapproval you never named.

I make pasta the way you taught me—

too much salt, never enough garlic,

and halfway through stirring the sauce

I notice I’m standing the way you stand,

Hip tilted, shoulders ready to correct.

When I buy a shirt I like,

I tilt my head in the mirror

and wonder if you’d call it “too loud,”

like feelings, like laughter, like me at sixteen.

You said you were just helping me “improve,”

as if my heart were a rough draft

You could keep revising into your voice.

Some mornings I wake

and your words are already in my mouth,

brushing my teeth with your guilt,

Rinsing with your favorite brand of regret.

I wish I could unzip my spine,

shake you out like dust from an old coat,

hang myself in the sun

and see what shape I take without you.

But yesterday I chose kindness

where you chose control,

softness where you sharpened your words,

And for a second I thought

Maybe I am the version you never let yourself be.