By Cerid Jones
PROMPT—No one noticed ...
My dog rests his head on my bladder,
I need to piss,
but it’s warm,
quiet and still.
I feel the weight of his big square
blocked head.
I tread the fur between his eyes with the tips of my fingers.
Its familiar.
7 years of familiar textures.
But I've forgotten what touch is.
Those familiarities of fibre and skin
are not akin
to the familiar absentminded tracings
- fingertips on fine hair between the folds of knuckles.
I've forgotten what it is to be held in serenity
with secrets between skin that echo past lives and promise futures to be lived.
I've forgotten what it Is to have promises of
possibility held between palms.
I've forgotten what touch is.
Almost envious of children
held
against a mothers hip,
what is to feel
connection
like this?
I can't
recall
ever having that sensation of
security.
Perhaps that shadow
that forced my fingertips to
grip at
biceps
of those who
Were merely
passing through.
I've forgotten what touch is.
Lost
in the long strides between
reaching for things
I'm never sure I've ever
held.
Stretching
against words
as if a
cocoon for a womb that
wounded.
Wounds wound into Kitti's never folded to hold my fibre.
Too much
mess,
Too much mass.
Too
heavy
in heart to be
held.
Were you afraid?
I've forgotten what touch is,
what the comfort of limbs
load into empty vessels is,
caresses that call storms to
serenity.
Intimacy intimidated by the
abandon of
umbilical to
human.
I often wonder
why the scar is buried so
deep,
a metaphor for secrets.
Keep hidden.
Closed.
I've forgotten what touch is
Replacing the sulking child in scolds
Acquiring
folds to hold back
Aches.
Takes time, I'm told.
Love me, hold me, want me, need me.
How to make touch
plutonic
when it contains a demonic
hunger
Not to be
abandoned.
Make up for what I
lacked
With chubby checks and cheap sneakers,
Or stubbies
and
cheap cigarettes.
I've forgotten what touch is.
My dog lifts his head and curls at my side.
I'm tired.
Cerid Jones is a life-long closeted writer learning how to be brave with sharing her musings. A lover of folk tales and myth, she hails from Aotearoa (New Zealand). Growing up in a house with more books than wall space and fae at the bottom of the garden, she’s always been a creature with a passion for arts and literature. Reading anything transporting her elsewhere or delving into the psyche of human nature, she works in publishing and sometimes teaches axe-throwing. Published in WildRoof Journal and Viewless Wings. Her work is soon to be published in two anthologies: Artificial Sweetener (SpecFicNz) and River and Stone (Morgantown Writers). You can find her at: Instagram@curiouscerid. She writes from Aotearoa, New Zealand.
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