you appear out of nothing, like you've left me for good

Hai :3

This poem is so tender and aching!! There’s such a soft, intimate loneliness here, like the whole poem exists in that strange half-space between memory, fantasy, and grief for something that maybe never fully happened. I love how physical the opening is, with the fingers, sheets, fan, hair, skin, tangled legs, but then it keeps slipping into absence. Like, the body remembers what the mind can’t quite hold onto anymore. That is SUCH a painful contrast!!

i watch my fingers curl into the sheets,
my nails catching the fabric
i feel the air from the overhead fan like soft fingers and whispers against my skin
his hand sliding into my hair, pressed close
being honest for once

This opening is soooo effective!! It immediately places us somewhere intimate, but not fully safe or certain. The sheets and nails make the speaker feel grounded in the present body, while the fan becomes almost ghostly, like the room itself is trying to imitate touch. I love that!! The fan as “soft fingers and whispers” gives this eerie tenderness, because it’s not actually him touching them, but the sensation is close enough to let the fantasy begin.

ten years, he tells me
my mind can’t conjure up a voice
can’t quite conjure up his smile
that used to make everything tight and warm and steal my breath

!!!! This hurts!!

The “ten years” line is devastating because it collapses so much time into such a small phrase. I love that the speaker can imagine closeness but not voice, not smile. That is so real!! Memory is cruel like that ~~ It keeps the feeling but erases the details. “tight and warm and steal my breath” is also lovely because it sounds almost young, like the body is remembering a first-love kind of intensity before the mind can intellectualize it.

^^^ I do think “steal my breath” is a familiar phrase, and the rest of the poem has such specific emotional imagery that I wonder if you could make that moment more uniquely yours. What did his smile actually do to the speaker’s body or the room? Did it make the webcam glow feel holy? Did it make silence feel less awkward? There’s a chance to make that memory more devastating by making it stranger or more personal!!

he’s older, not the thirteen year old with a blurry web cam
white shirt unbuttoned, i remember the night that it's from
the party when his arm had been around my shoulder and he was sitting so close
here he’s no coward

This part adds so much narrative meaning!! The jump from “thirteen year old with a blurry web cam” to the older version of him is so bittersweet because it shows how long this attachment has lived in the speaker. There’s this painful blending of adolescent intimacy and adult longing, and it makes the fantasy feel less like desire alone and more like mourning for the versions of them that never got to exist ~~ That's such a powerful concept!!

“Here he’s no coward” is SUCH a strong line too. It says so much with so little. The fantasy gives him courage, gives the speaker the version of him they wanted, maybe still wants. That’s heartbreaking!! It also reframes the whole poem: this isn’t just remembering him in a poem; it’s revising how the narrator sees him.

the thought makes his image flee
i’m left here alone again
wishing for a future that’s out of my reach
his friendly texts sitting unread on my phone
i wonder if it was true

UGH. The ending is so lonely!!

The moment the speaker asks for truth, the fantasy disappears. That is such a painful and realistic emotional twist!! It’s like uncertainty is the thing keeping him alive in their mind, but also the thing that destroys the image whenever they look too closely. I especially love “his friendly texts sitting unread on my phone.” That line is brutal because it brings us back to the present in such a mundane way. He isn’t gone-gone. He’s reachable, technically. But it's not in the way the speaker wants ~~ That makes the ending hurt more than if he were completely absent. He exists, but the future doesn’t.

^^^ My one note here is that “wishing for a future that’s out of my reach” explains the feeling very clearly, but I think the poem is strongest when it lets imagery carry the ache: the sheets, the fan, the phone, the unread texts, the shirt, the webcam, etc. I wonder if you could make that line more image-based? Something like the future being on the screen, in the unread notification, in the space between their bodies, etc. You already have such good physical images, and I’d love to see the ending lean even harder into them.

This is so devastating though!! It captures that specific kind of longing where you’re not just missing a person, but missing the version of them who might have chosen you. The softness makes it hurt more. Beautiful work!! ^_^

- Payton