Cassandra Khaw

The ritualism of my dressing, the attention they invest in the act, every motion elegiac, elegant; it proposes the presence of an unconsummated tenderness, something more profound than camaraderie.
I tilt my cheek, feel their breath puff against my flesh, and there is the sense of timelines fractalizing. In some other world, somewhere, perhaps they kiss me: lightly, feverishly, with the emphasis of desperation, with hesitation, with passion requited.

If I could answer this with any certainty, I’d consume them in a heartbeat, preserve them in every chapter of my body. I’d do anything but watch them die.

Better I be reduced to miscreant daydreams of the ocean than be alive without them. Whatever it takes. Anything. Anything, so long as they stay with me.