(after Hanif Abdurraqib)
By AVA NAIR
i taught her to carry
a glass of water in one hand
and a blade in the other,
to call the tremor between them
affection.
but she turned to me, yesterday morning
& asked, with sour lemons
in her mouth:
what kind of psychopath
places life and death
so close together—
and still calls it home?
now i dream of nights i can’t quite place—
sweet static, low murmurs that i hold but can’t
unravel.
the skin remembers more than our
mind permits. aching ribs are proof the heart
keeps trying. would it just
once stop hammering, be
quiet in its unrest, an untethered
flutter below the bone—an
echo too faint to be unspectacular,
too human not to call it a thing.
i clouded her vision
with headstones,
stacked like skylines,
a city of graves
lit against the neon light.
maybe—
maybe what saves us from
the edge—isn’t glory, but a funeral
we keep delaying with breath.
Writer | Ava Nair ‘28 | anair28@amherst.edu
Editor | Katelyn Parrott ‘27 | kparrott27@amherst.edu
Artist | Gabriela Machado ‘28 | gmachado28@amherst.edu