David Estringel

Blue Room

Nights
are hardest to bear,
alone,
atop these unwashed sheets
that smell of you and me,
still,
crinkled and heavy
with ghosts
of you and me—
our sweat and loving juices.
I am tethered
to flashes of smiles and kisses
that linger
beneath the sweetness
of heated exhales.
To smell your breath,
again,
and taste you
on the back of my tongue.
To pull you into me
by the small of your back
and sink
into the warmth of white musk–
a tangle of tongues, fingers, and limbs.
To have you—
know you—
again,
inside
and out
is all I want.
Need.
Laying here,
drowning
in us,
my legs brush against the cold
rustle of sheets
you left behind,
cutting the airlessness
of this room.
Rolling over,
I close my eyes
and sink my face into the depths
of your pillow,
escaping the void
that even silence’s ring has forgotten,
and take you
in,
drowning
in us,
this lover’s kaddish.
The scent of your hair—
blue fig and oranges—
and spit
are but pebbles on the gravestone.

(Originally published at Former People Journal)