By Emily Ruxton

the first night we laid together you clasped my hand in yours
our fingers intertwined
i’m not a religious person but i prayed
i prayed to every god there ever was and every god there ever will be
hoping they’d guard what felt too perfect to hold

i want you, in every sense of the phrase
i want your beating heart
i want you to bury your pain in my skin, and your secrets in my hair
i want to unlock each compartment of your soul, like the jewelry box i had as a child
the ballerina on top broken and frozen in time
i wanted to give you every part of me
every atom of myself, in exchange for a sliver of you
i’d have traded you diamonds for coal
i’d have been your wife, your friend, or your mistress
as long as i could have you in some shape or form

in the morning we woke up in your childhood bed
our chests pressed together, skin to skin
surrounded by remnants of who you used to be
i tried desperately to match my breathing to yours
i felt you shake in my arms
your tears absorbed into my skin
through saying nothing at all you said everything i needed to hear

everything i’ve ever let go of has claw marks
and i could see the scratches on your back before i even touched you
i asked you if you would feel this way forever and you said that you didn’t know
a sense of sincerity in your voice

i held on to you like you were summer and i didn’t want to feel the cold
then i closed the curtains but left the window open,
letting the bitter winter air in
you poured the leftover wine down the sink but kept the bottle
a relic of what we couldn’t go through with finishing
we shook hands and went our separate ways
but there is still a part of me that is you
a part of me i won’t see again

Emily is a teen writer from rural Scotland who aims to explore themes of love, loss and personal introspection, aiming to give a raw and relatable insight to these complex emotions.