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an irreparable sense of missing.

by Eli Skipp


so he's sleeping naked and she's sleeping clothed and she does this because
she's frightened to be discovered as bodily flawed but just to give peace
to herself she, sleeping clothed with her back to him, lifts her shirt so
that her spine can touch the soft skin of his lower belly and she presses to him
and they stick together from the heat but as she struggles to loop her legs around
the bends of his knees in puzzle-piece formation she considers how people never
really touch, how nothing ever really touches, how even her body is disconnected
because atoms constantly repel and the closest she can come since birth is sticking
her smaller back to the belly of this boy and missing him, missing him, missing him.

the next time he asks her what she's thinking about, that is what she will say: i
am filled with an immense sense of missing. when my body shivers i can feel the minute
molecules of my innards rearranging and when i press my hand to yours to assure myself
that you are large enough when compared to me, to engulf me wholly, all i can think of
is how we will never really touch.

we will mime it for the rest of our lives. we will be satisfied with the closest
closeness we can manage, we will be.

12/23/2007

Author's Note: this may yet become a knots poem, about the eye splice.

Posted on 12/24/2007
Copyright © 2024 Eli Skipp

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Paul Marino on 12/24/07 at 04:16 PM

i love this. specifically the first stanza, and almost feel it should end there. but i don't kno if you care what i think. anyway, i love that first stanza bc it flows so smoothly and the line breaks work even though the lines are long. the rhythm is right.

Posted by Kimberly Bowen on 12/27/07 at 05:57 AM

this was brilliant and beautiful.

Posted by Sophia Grace on 12/28/07 at 02:28 PM

I think this is one of my favourite pieces that I've read in a while. I especially love this line 'when i press my hand to yours to assure myself that you are large enough when compared to me, to engulf me wholly, all i can think of is how we will never really touch.' -- it really resonates with me somehow.

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