TO THE PEOPLE STILL HAUNTING MY DREAMS
Like a dent in the gums from a lost tooth, and the tongue keeps lingering over it again and again.
nameless shores and unspoken words
I fell for an ephemeral ghost. Our ending was set in stone, counting down, and yet I let myself fall further and deeper still. I still feel remnants of your touch: pressing kisses wherever you could reach. And the way you held me, both as if I would break, and as if you let go even slightly, I would leave and never return. As if you went without one more touch, one more kiss, something would melt away and never be whole again.
You took me to the harbour, and we sat on the rocks by the wavering boats on the water. Talking at the stars, making up constellations and telling stories as countless planes cruised above us. The flashing lights of an aeroplane's wing seemed a lot more poetic when they weren't taking me away from you. Under the glow of a docking boat, you tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and told me words don’t do you justice. In that moment, you were my Pygmalion, sculpting me to be loved by you.
You would get me flowers, just because. And now my windowsill is home to a half-empty vase of water, slowly gathering dust. Even now, the faintest reminders of baby’s breath and tiger lilies are enough to constrict my lungs and make breathing a chore. I can’t put other flowers in that vase, it would be defiling your memory. Or maybe it would just be me finally accepting that you’re never coming back.
At every stoplight, you’d turn and reach for me. That blanket of red light still makes my heart skip a bittersweet beat. With a hand on my thigh, you parked at a beach whose name I don’t recall anymore. So small and forgotten by the world that the parking spots’ lines had long faded from existence: or perhaps, they had never been there at all. And your laughter, that piercing cackle, seemed to illuminate the sea more than your car’s dusty yellow headlights. That night, I saw the waves crash against the shore, the foam slowly dissipating as we soon would.
We’d call each other friends, yet we were anything but. Pausing at the end of phone calls, three words stuck somewhere within our vocal chords. I wish we could’ve spent a lot more time together. But we couldn’t.
And now, I think I’ll remember you for a little too long.
* * * * *
ticket stub
The smoke from a chimney, fading against the sky bleeding red. And the distant clouds, melding into the sea, as though the horizon was a fraying knot. I grip your hand a little tighter, against the rumble of the engine of the plane.
In your deep brown eyes, I see hints of worn-down, flickering billboards, the same ones you lit my cigarette under. Our breaths in the autumnal air floating into the dusk, indistinguishable from the smoke. As you fumbled with a lighter, you whispered that you had feelings for me. The flame flickers to life, and the wind takes your words to someplace we’ll never go.
I think of you whenever I sketch a face. How you’d hold up a pencil and close one eye, how I’d come to life on your page. Eyes lost in a dream and cheeks blushed with infatuation, a cliche of some lovestruck heroine of a film. I had never known that I could look like that to someone. And the wind rumpling your sketchbook, the echoes of your voice intermingling with the rustling trees. The falling autumn leaves still remind me of you, of everything that we could’ve been.
Dark nights in some strange hotel room, laughter and sullied white sheets. And in the morning, you’d stare at me as though searching for something, and I would lose myself in those eyes time and time again. "What’re you looking at?" And you’d respond every time, "Nothing, nothing at all." I wonder if you ever found what you were looking for. I wonder who you found it in.
Your touch still lingers on my skin. My thighs still marred from those summer nights, running through bushes to catch a glimpse of the sea. Whenever someone brushes against those still-fading scars, I think of their hands as yours. Whenever I wake up next to someone new, for a split second, I can imagine they’re you. Sometimes, I let myself live longer in that delusion.
When we first met, you told me, "You’ll get used to me." And I think a part of me already had. Now, there’s not quite a hole, but a gap in my life. Like a dent in the gums from a lost tooth, and the tongue keeps lingering over it again and again.
* * * * *
geminids
You drive your mother’s beat-down car to where I'm staying, and pick me up under dusk’s watchful streetlights. Some empty field, covered in a thick blanket of snow. I press my shoulder against yours, and you don’t say a word. Our breaths unfurl into the night skies like the clouds just out of reach, and you point at a star that neither of us can name. We don’t see a single shooting star that night, but I wonder if you still made a wish.
We sit in silence for hours, and I think about how afraid I am of ruining you. The way you glance at my lips but don’t touch them. The way you look at me like I’m about to vanish. You open your mouth then shut it, unspoken words fading into the cold moonlight.
Stretch marks over your heart, a sign that something grew too fast for the rest of the world to adjust. The slight tremor in your hands as you reach for me. You cup my face as though I am a snowflake, ready to dissolve at the slightest warm touch. Your hands ghost over me, and for a moment I feel like porcelain. I toss my clothing aside, and you’re in awe. "You’re beautiful, like art." And I flinch at that, somehow.
In your sleep, you wrap around me, as if you can’t bear the thought of my departure. I stare into your bedroom light, the dim moonlight reflecting off the glass covering of the bulb, and wonder what you’d think if I just got up and left. Then you breathe a sigh and tuck your face into my neck, and the faintest hint of your vanilla shampoo drowns my thoughts instead.
You drop me off, and in the falling snow, you watch me step into the dimly lit entryway. The faint orange light from a room down the hall, tinting the air filled with winter's dying whispers. Your headlights fade into the fog of snowflakes, and we become strangers once again.
I swear I don’t miss you, but every time I’m reminded of you, there’s a pang in my heart, as though someone plucked a guitar string with full force. Not quite pain nor sadness, but something echoing within a hollow frame.
AUTHOR: Rowen Lee is a second year cognitive neuroscience and literary arts major at Brown. She enjoys Russian literature and overcomplicated playlists.
ARTIST: Lanie Cherry is an illustrator in her junior year at Brown. She is probably somewhere sipping a chai latte.