i forget i fell asleep with you and can’t think of anything sweeter

you fall asleep with coffee breath, & the rain starts, hitting the sidewalk
as the dog whistles. the dog is whistling next to you & everything is
silent still. i imagine the noise of nothing sliding through the house. at
our world’s end, olive bread. so we ripped it off the loaf. our last meal
in the big house that no longer feels like ours. scattered we are,
segmented. yeasty fingers finding mouths & tasting only closeness. we
chew the way crying & loving & laughing leaves us all the same, with
mouths good for nothing else & exhausted. it all ended not with a bang
but like breathy windchimes. singing everyday & everyday silence. a
song we could squeeze all our voices into. thank god. i still have your
smell. i try to chase a sweetness & find you curled up in your own
arms. mourning sticking to the sheets & to our breaths, each other.
breakfast hisses in the pan. the dog is stinky & not ours. you spread
yourself all over me.

Ellie Sharp is a college student in Portland, Oregon studying comparative literature. They’ve been published by Blue Marble Review, Bitch Media, Deep Overstock, and all the sins. Ellie is also the editor in chief of their college’s literary magazine, Reed College Creative Review. Their writing loves the shoreline, and returns to it endlessly.