And I hear the requiem across her furniture.
My hands trying to find her, capture what is lost.
My fingertips like strings, evoking her disappearing voice.
Whilst I was asleep, she was slipping away from me.
So no harm would be done.
Silently, my name, my name, my name, in her mouth.
I dream of her and think of her death as surreal,
As something vague in the future.
I look at her face on the photograph and I know her skin,
Her touch,
Her laughter,
Her scent
Are all gone.
I conserve all of her in my muscle memory,
My own body.
She has become formless.
My heart moulds her anew every day.
I’m told to compose myself.
I compose her and all the good she stood for.
I will not apologise for loving her the way I do.
The faceless red glasses.
The books containing her time.
The painting of an open window above her bed.
The way she looks at me when I cry and whisper her name.
I think of her as if she wasn’t dead.

“In a rose garden” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)
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My name is Laura Gentile. I’m of German-Italian descent and I speak five languages such as English, German, French, Italian, Luxembourgish and I’m currently learning Romanian.
I hold a Master of Arts Degree in English Literature, Film and Visual Culture (Dissertation: The Decadent in Love with his Psychopomp: Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice' and Adrian Lyne's 'Lolita') and a Master of Letters by Research in English Literature, Film and Visual Culture (Thesis: Romanticising Decadence and Aestheticising Death: Women as Projection Bodies and Mimetic Identities in Zola’s 'Thérèse Raquin', Schnitzler’s 'Dream Story', Süskind’s 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' and Eugenides’ 'The Virgin Suicides').
Author of "Within Paravent Walls". Pentalingual Idealist. Writer of psycho-corporeal Poetry. Creator of Croque-Melpomene & Les Femmes de la Décadence.
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