Paired Gums
written by: Sarah Shihab
I find creases in your skin that only serve to fit the curve of my stretched index. Even pulses of mine that engage with the rest of my moulded skin, strictly when your thumb reaches the roof of my mouth.
Crowds lack participation in the way our bodies breathe from the same set of lungs and hear from the same set of ears. We do not share what is ours. Red paint streaks the downturned faces of the damned that are there but not here. No, never here.
Habitual and strict, I fill plush toys and overly bodacious skirts with letters that leave your lips while I stuff my intestines with the prints you lay on my pointed ribs.
You never found my knobby bones too rough, only smooth at their sharpest.
Watch the audience grow bare and our clothes line of laundry rise. Bloody and raw, we sit connected at the top of the hill. Sewed at the hip, our hearts pumping to and from one another.
- Paired Gums - June 8, 2025
- Ties - February 3, 2025
