toxic Jaden O’Berry i hope you see me. every time you close your eyes, every time you blink, every time you see a girl with long brown hair and miles of pale skin—i hope you see me. i hope you hear my laughter resonate through quiet rooms and i hope you can still feel the way my cold hands would trace patterns on your bare skin. i hope when you cradle her in your arms at night you are plagued with the way my legs curled around yours as we slept. i hope that you smell the scent of lavender and feel the ghost of my hair through your fingertips; i hope you smell peach and remember the velvet softness of my skin. i hope i envelop your mind the way a disease envelops patient zero, because, my god, i was your patient zero. ever since i laid eyes on you i have been plagued with this feeling slinking among my day-to-day routine, taking over my every waking thought. i am the patient that still experiences symptoms through quarantine walls, i feel nothing but the ghost touch of a boy who i thought could redeem me. and while i’m stuck behind this one-sided glass all i see is you and her and the way her eyes shine at the caress of your hand. that’s when i realize: i was never the disease—i was the diseased. and now she’s been infected, too.
Still Life 2020
75
