The Shape of You

Without.

I don’t tell you that time stood still in our bedroom that day. I don’t say that I beaded memories and dreams in succession. Alternatively. Desperately.

I let the white sheet of the bed become your body, ending just where your feet would. Did. Could.

I had the strangest nightmare. That I was stuffing figs into my mouth. And you were picking them from a baobab and placing them in my papery hand. Falling and rolling away. Many. I can still taste them. I can still taste you.

Remember the time when I got really obsessed with learning the names of all the trees in the world? I never asked: do trees look a different color to your emerald eyes? But I never dared. I stayed small. I never held your hand and took you for a stroll in the gardens of my mind. Even when you took me through yours. I remember the smell of each of your wishes. The leaves of your stories. The name of the sky when you were seven. The night of your day when you turned eighteen.

I don’t know in how many ways and how many times I will write about you leaving. My distractions wear your one silver earring. My dreams sound like your footsteps walking away. I often wear your perfume on my wrist, the only way left to hold you.

Remember when I slid my hand into your pocket and pulled you? Your large body. Your giant chest. You almost fell on top of me. And I wasn’t scared. I was so sure you’d rather grow wings, or defy gravity, or conjure a spell. But you wouldn’t crush me. I bet against the laws of physics. That was your place in my life. That’s how my heart chanted your name.

I am still standing in the doorframe of your goodbye. Your mouth still brushes my neck when somehow the wind feels cool in summer. Down my collarbone. Around my shoulders. Squeezing the small of my back. Knocking out my breath. Leaving the stain of your presence on my fingertips.

And I know I have to let you go. But I don’t want to. Yet. Not yet. So, until I do, I will hold you as a ghost as light as the powder of flour, mixed with water and kneaded with soft fists. You weren’t all bone. Some of you were pink flesh. Like dough. Let me pretend that I can hold on to it a bit longer, without shape. Let me love you a little longer. Maybe even without end.

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Eugenia Gorbacheva

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