I take care when I say your name.
I speak slowly, hold the vowels in my mouth to melt, like candy.
Breathe deep… exhale a warm A,
lips meet in the middle between the A and the “ee”, reminding me of you
and me. My tongue swells on the finish, filling the emptiness of my mouth
like you, filling the you-shaped hole that threatened the integrity of my entire structure.
Your love runs like a hot spring over smooth stones,
crashing on the corners and picking up speed. Churning, and singing, and drawing me close.
Mine is wandering, hungry, grizzly, hot sweat, all teeth and lips and hands and thirst.
And in drinking, I am swept in, drowned, dashed upon your rocks,
eyes hopelessly blind to the shore. I pull in lungs full of you…
Only to realize I have been a fish all along, slowly suffocating on land.
Model: Rachelle Pimentel. Original Photographer: CDH Photos. Edited with Prisma.