Aria Aber writes and lives in London where she is studying towards an English degree at Goldsmiths College. Her work has appeared in a variety of online magazines. She blogs miscellaneously at ariamisha.tumblr.com and tweets thoughtlessly at @ariamisha.
The lanugo shines from you as a second skin, this
glittering milky fur on the curd of your heart. People
like us recognize each other from miles apart: the way
we carry our bodies, shivering dandruff that does not
touch the earth. Our souls are unwired, and we nibble
on them as if they were nails. I look healthy now, but I still
carry the voice tied around my wrist in an invisible balloon.
I am still cold, sometimes. I was the yellow bird, it chirps,
as the feathers fall from your hair. Your legs yield like the
summer the boy used to peel from the concave of my hip,
leaving a grease stain on the refrigerator door. I’d watch
him empty the Spezi bottle, the glass shed tiny pearls. Those
days, my head hung from the thirsty sky with the lucid purity
of starving to death. And everything was frail and absolute.