tausendsassa
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”
Mornings are purple against the long grey linen curtain. Before I open my eyes, I feel the sun’s lashes on my face. The white blanket reveals my shoulders. I am cold, yet I do not move. His breath at my temple is a soft pant. When I dream, it is of long blue hallways that glow aquamarine. I walk in black heels that clatter against the linoleum tiles. I am in high school and bodies I recognize lean against the narrow lockers. One girl follows me. She has blond hair and a green necklace with silver pearls at the breast. It was a gift from me. She follows my footsteps and hisses; you are a terrible writer. I tried to run and slip on thick yellow noodles from the Raman Clara, and I used to order in the small shop on Main Street.
I enter a dark room with wooden desks and chairs. A blackboard carries an inscription: life is not a problem to be solved. I go to one of the chairs and sit down. A bell rings three times. When it stops, I can hear the clock ticking. It is twenty past three. People enter the room, and he is with them. I recognize his hair and height in the shadow of the door. I watch him enter and sit on the long couch against the east-facing wall. I look at the spot between his shoes and too-short pants at his ankles' smooth, tan skin. When he looks at me, he speaks in a way I do not understand. I reach out across the azure to caress his lips with my thumb. I want to taste each word with my whole body. Contact is the pop of a lid leaving the mouth of a jar; I pull the olive from the oil and lick each finger. I am melting mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes. Mint leaves and black tea. Fajr prayer, or the Eurasian Nightjar, lure me from the cold classroom to the bed. I become through the sound of his devotion in wakeless sleep, Alhamdulillah.
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