writing is an act of assembling ghosts
*
I am familiar with everything your body contained
and that you left behind
when you stepped into formlessness
*
we found each other in a space that nobody else can see
the strings that death tears off from life
stretch and spread like feathers into infinite selves
*
I perceived you long after you were gone
*
and they mock everything into submission in their heads
and shrink and shrink like self-erasing puppets
*
grief and love are cut from the same cloth
as tears stem from a spring
*
I looked hard at your death
I sat in the absence of speech
the lack of explanations
the intrusion of silence
words become sign language
I looked at your dead face
and in almost incomprehensible ways
you’ve felt more alive over time
more present
there’s no presence without absence
*
we stem from a collective body of deaths
*
I sit here by myself
and you’re so close to me
it makes me cry
*
there was an empty room
there is a place of ashes
but you’re on my skin
you’re in my hair
across my fingertips
*
we exist through imagery
*
your shed physicality found warmth in my hands
Croque-Melpomene 