The last time I touched her, I didn’t want to let go.
Life interfered with our togetherness, time had run out.
The memory of her echoes and echoes in my mind,
I hear her voice saying my name, I feel the loss of her suffering,
The beginning and roots of my lack, of her, her presence turned into
Absence and I stare at the moon, thinking she sees it too, still, anew.
The pain in her face, the tremulous eyebrows, the eyes torn between
Two worlds, the skin metamorphosed by the underworld, the lips
Attaching themselves to the syllables of my name and I felt her heartbeat
In my chest. I clasped everything I knew of her in my hands and kissed her,
Knowing that I had to loosen my grip eventually, to let her breathe, elsewhere.
My face imprints her name on my pillow at night.
I think of her and hold her in tears, in tension and release.
I mumble and miss her embrace, I see her as a little girl
Across the street from me, destitute and strong, I would know
How her story ends, I write and rewrite. I want to capture her,
Keep her under my skin, her dead hand in mine, I want to be
Her source of life. I think I lost her. I absorbed her. Still. Every single day.
Her image on my pillow sheets, I keep her warm, my tears dry on her skin.
Croque-Melpomene 