CW: self-harm, bodily harm.

This poem began as flash fiction, and was then whittled even smaller—perhaps ironic, given its subject. I wrote this to explore how we change in a relationship, how it isn’t always healthy or best for us—or necessarily consensual. We give pieces of ourselves away, we have pieces taken, we cut ourselves down to nothing in the name of love, and it is both a horror and a revelation.

—ECT

I was not born
In this field of grass
but am anchored
By your leaving—
Called, you said
To a higher purpose
To a higher being.

What was it
To be called—
To be under such
Demand.

I have never been
Someone’s choice,
Have never been
Called to purpose.

I was not born
In this field of grass,
But know what it is
To let everything go.

The summer into the autumn
The autumn into the winter

The grass withers
The way my hands
Have withered
Away—
Called to purpose

So that I may hold to nothing
And let everything go, always.