What We Found In The Attic
The woman you once loved
does not sleep between us in bed.
She is always awake
in my palms
when I move to touch your face
too quickly;
when I mistake your shaking
as something
born of the cold.
We have spoken at length, you and I,
about being inhabited by the body
of a flinch. About what turns us
into bird’s bones. Its fingers
growing longer and longer
the more we think of them.
He says, “it is not because of you,”
I say, “I see another face sometimes, too.”
She sends you once-in-a-while love notes,
still. You let me read them;
they do not come to you like poems
or musings
of some long-soured ‘I miss you.’
It is something else entirely to me that
some past love must look like
blood to you.
I have my own memories
of similar blood, too.
In the attic of a home that is new to us,
we find a box of wedding photographs
marked “garbage.”
We still try to believe that
gone love
was still love.
But we know, with these promises
on our skin, some love cannot be
forgotten. Some love
leaves marks.
Not all true things
were good to us.
By Emma Bleker
Biography:
Emma Bleker is a 22 year old writer based out of Virginia. She has previously been published or is forthcoming in Philosophical Idiot, Persephone’s Daughters, Cahoodaloodaling, Yellow Chair Review, Thought Catalog, Rising Phoenix Review, and Skylark Review, among others. She probably wants to be your friend.