Illustration by Tomiris Tatisheva
If you press your ear to the door you can still hear it—
forced rise and fall of the chest. Gasp in,
long wheeze out. The divet in his mattress.
No one comes in and he never left
and I’m still standing there, I smell him. As if kissing
the creases of his sweat lined forehead.
Eleni Mazareas (she/her) is a junior at Barnard College studying history with a concentration in empires and colonialism. Her most prized possessions are her Telfar bags and her favorite poem is "Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People are Dying" by Noor Hindi. You can find her on Instagram.