pieces

Vera Hadzic

Haven’t I tried to love you in silence?
You and the thickening of your voice,
the layers of breath coating the edge of
your words, the leaves of mist filling your
pauses, you and the burnished gold hiding,
buried under the false bottoms of your eyes,
gleaming, winking out between the folds
of brown, you and your hair, the way it
clings to your neck, hooks to your
shoulders, falls like water to kiss the
sides of your face, you and that face,
soft, vulnerable like fresh pita bread, cooling
on the table, and just as open and textured
and whisperingly fragile, you and the
freckles that are like specks of brown sugar,
or kisses of earth on your cheeks, you and
the warning of muscle that wades, swims, coasts
under your flesh, your triceps, the press and
tense of your biceps femoris, your obliques,
dorsals sheathing around your back, you and
the weight of your bones when you
lean on me, the burrowing of your
temple into my shoulder, you and
your hands that are light and swift like
salmon fighting upriver, your hands
curving over mine, your hands in my
hair, you and the little smile
you give when you watch the sunrise,
the soaking of the sky in sangria, the
dipping of the clouds in pomegranate juice –
taking colour like fluffy bread, you and
the kisses you’ve never given me, you
and your laugh that settles and sticks
in the lining of my collarbone and my ribcage,
you and your secrets and your silence.
For you, I’m giving up mine.

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Vera Hadzic is a writer from Ontario, Canada, currently studying English literature at the University of Ottawa. Her writing has appeared in Fever Dream, Crow & Cross Keys, Kissing Dynamite, and elsewhere. She is a staff poet for Gossamer Lit and edits Wrongdoing Magazine, and can be found on Twitter @HadzicVera.

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