Achlys’ Touch

my mother armed with loneliness walks around like a suicide bomber holds me tight at night like memories of her childhood almost crushing me to death with her my roommate sleeps with her dead grandfather’s shawl next to her she thinks it still smells like him i wonder if she wonders what he smells like now my friend holds my hand like a child in a fair she says she’d forgotten what foreign skin felt like the last time she touched skin that wasn’t hers was of her happiness happiness doesn’t pick calls anymore my lover calls me and asks “Do you remember what i felt like?” i want to tell the lover that i don’t i don’t remember what it felt like to have your arms around me like a cocoon. safe. i don’t remember what your shirt smelt like i don’t remember the feeling of having your hands in mine and i don’t remember the last time i wasn’t fine

-Written By: Anandha Lekshmi Nair

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