Beach  

Today I am cold. And hot and cold and hot and cold. And sad. And I would give anything to go back to that night in that attic room where you were dressed in a suit and you held my waist and danced with me slowly – like a sway. Like a breeze inside of my head and my heart and we were tipsy off of champagne and you held me. You still held me even though you knew what I knew then. You knew me… You knew me then.

I never gave you the letter I wrote you that night. Was it that night? Doesn’t matter I guess now. But I woke up so early and I put on music hoping you would hear it thinking that it was my voice instead of hers and I wanted you to walk in on me writing you this letter. But I still have it and it sits in my drawer and I think about it sometimes. Sometimes when I get like this.

He has been asleep for hours now and this empty place feels like my bones and I wish that you would just call me on a whim sometimes. You've never done that before. Just called me on a whim. I especially wish it would happen when I get like this. I wonder if you feel this feeling – the emptiness of bones. The hollowness of me. But inside of you.

Sometimes
I get like this.
The feeling on the pads of my fingertips
The only familiar taste
to me –
and my memory.

You are there.

Did I leave you in such a state
of urgency?

My skin is penetrating heat
There is fever in my belly.

In my dream
I find you in a black room.
It is dark –
But I find you.
I am scared
But you hold me
Even though I am bleeding.

You hold me
even though I am bleeding.

And I walk down paths.

I walk down paths and I am never rid of this.
Of this stink on my skin.
Of this boney, figureless figure.
Just walking –
trying to rid herself of you.

But no matter how hard I try…
Today is not familiar to me.

It's not with me
on this skin.

© 2007 Victoria Rohac