This piece was originally published in Quarto’s 2022 Spring Print.
Illustration by Bella Aldrete
after natalie wee
I miss you like a hum thrums clean
through bone.
resounds, then remains –
a violent infusion.
a church bell calling us all forth.
& I’m no longer bargaining with fate,
only demanding
for you to hold me.
for the room to fill
with the echo of your bell song.
my mind a speeding train
forged in your language: each violent jolt
swings open into memory,
a ghost-door,
panic;
my stomach vast like a lacuna;
like leaking boat upon the lake;
like spleen
where loss splinters the daylight.
where mourning multiplies like cobwebs
sticky & sunlit.
how just like that,
we unravel into whisps
bind solidly with intermissions & spend all main acts of life
pursuing unapproachable relief.
how just like that,
you loved me & I left.
you loved me & then distance.
& a string between us which
still pulls.
eris sker (she/they) is a senior at columbia college studying comparative literature & society. they like moon jellies and peonies.