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We never waded through a
Marsh together did we
Picking reeds
Tasting the salt in the air
Our feet and ankles soaked
Our cheeks touching
Our lips coming close
As we crouched down
For a better view of
Something skimming by.
We never hiked a mountain trail
Planting the first set of prints
In fresh snow
Agitating the storm
Gritting our teeth
Ignoring the counsel of our good sense
To turn around to head back
Before nightfall.
Never awoke together naked
Chilled by fragmenting moonlight
A breeze blowing back the
Lace curtains.
Never stood hip to hip
Looking out the window
Unrushed
Watching gray waves on an overcast day
Break over rocks jutting into the ocean
Not thinking about where we were
Knowing only that we were
Far from anyone
Who might be wondering about us
Worried about us
Wondering where we were.
Those dreams we shared
The trips we planned
Traveling somewhere
By air or train or bus
Didn’t take place didn’t
Happen. We never went anywhere
We could not reach by foot.
Were never awaken
By the sound of someone approaching
Unlocking the door.
Never dressed in a hurry
One of us
Jumping behind the sofa
Sneaking into the closet then
Slipping out of the apartment
At the first opportunity
Tiptoeing down the hallway
Entering into the stairwell
Taking care not to allow the
Fire door to slam
Giving ourselves away.
We never cried about what this was about
About what we had gotten ourselves into.
Never looked at one another with
Teary sleep deprived eyes and said
Anything like “this is so confusing” or
“This is so inappropriate” or
“We’ve got to stop but
Not now
Not for a long time.”
You never tried to blow out your brains
With music pumping through earbuds
Never buried your head under a pillow
To blot out the caterwaul of the intercom
My proxy
Screeching screaming
Demanding your attention
Pleading with you
To let me in.
Never texted
“Come back come back come back.”
A dozen times in fifteen minutes.
Forty times in a half hour.
“Please come back.
This time I’ll let you in.
Come back.”
Never sat next to one another
In the dark
Holding hands
Tracing each other’s inner thighs
With the tips of our fingers
Reading each other’s
Perplexed minds
Saying nothing
Understanding each other’s silence
Our common tongue.
We neither fucked nor made love
Whatever it is we would have been doing
Never climaxed all over each other
My body being one place
Yours being somewhere else
Our thoughts entangled
Convulsing
Clutching and clawing
Our fantasies as venal as flesh.
Never had a meal together
Or a drink other than a
Cup of coffee. And even then
You didn’t taste yours
Only lifted the mug
Brought it close to your lips
Blew the steam
In my direction.
We never even met.
Zev Torres is a writer and spoken word performer whose work has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications, including, most recently, the Suisun Valley Review and the Long Island Poetry Collective’s Xanadu. His poetry has also been included in the Spring, 2016 Poetry Leaves exhibition in Waterford, Michigan. Since 2008, Zev has hosted Make Music New York’s annual Spoken Word Extravaganza, and in 2010 he founded the Skewered Syntax Poetry Crawls. Zev has self-published three chapbooks: Revision (2010), In Celebration of Hope and Change and Percussion Suite.
–Art by Ashley Holloway