"it is 6am and all i have is the last meme you sent me​", Jocelyn Suarez

because we have no other language for this tenderness​
than to laugh at it. so un/used to the sting of brimming​
in a cup and letting it overflow. except when you curl​

into yourself and seek my skin over yours​
and i feel the soft underside of your body​
for a moment. or the times you stop mid-​

sentence to kiss my face. or when you stared​
straight into sunlight and my eclipse of it​
to say, how lovely. no more words were ever ​

necessary. we, never the type to cast lots in poetry.​
not us, no. we make do with the unclenching​
laughter permits. what we lack in romancing ​

we make up for silly. i watch the dawn spill​
from the horizon until the sky is so full that the​
morning empties itself and i don’t think of you. not

really. when the birds start screaming, i do​
a little. i have switched to drinking tea. when i get ​
wine-tipsy, i resist drunk-texting. when we​

share a bed, we leave a space in between,​
conscientious in the idea of taking up​
space by offering it in exchange. we have​

no song. we display affection in​ shit-
talking. we laugh way too much ​
because of this. that is enough. it must​

be. one night, in your sleep, you reached for my​
hand and held it. in my unconscious surrender,​
i allowed myself to fill the space you

offered. i still feel the muscle-deep memory ​
of our skin connecting. a tangle of fingers so ​
simply satisfied with a moment too wholesome​

for the waking. some nights, i think of ​
writing that down in a love poem, make words ​
out of it, out of this. but i don’t: i wake up at 6am​

and read your memes instead.​

/ Jocelyn Suarez is part of the poetry collective ATOM. She has written approximately one and a half novel and eaten approximately 739 cheeseburgers in her lifetime.

READ: “CURSE OF THE SEND BUTTON”, GERALDINE YEOH →

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