“He laid his head in my palms
And I watched as he grew a garden of roses
Across a dying field.
He had the power to entrap me in flesh
Without it.
He had the power to fill it.
His shaky pulse hiding in all his aching limbs —
We depended on each other for breath,
For scars appearing when we don’t shower
And disappearing when we do.
We used to scrub our faces before we saw each other,
But that was two years ago —
Before he went to bed and I braided my hair,
He told me that I kept it nice.
Sometimes we moved between
Unsent letters and shoulders and drinks,
And I wondered how a man can breathe
With tears in his eyes, how he can eat
With so much sweat over his head,
How I can eat in sight of so much ocean.
Down below his spine, the surf moved like
A body of morphine twisting up the coast.
He kept laying in my palms
Even though his head was throbbing
And he said, “Death passes through you like wind,”
And I replied, “I think it passes over you like
Wind over water.”
Gabby Catalano is a web writer, digital marketing expert, and third-year Mass Media student in San Diego. She’s the Editorial Board Member at thefbomb.org and a published writer at LA Canvas, FOAM Magazine, BUST Magazine, and many more. She enjoys taking her experiences and turning them into art.
