Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
i remember a groan as you turned from one side to another next to me.
the brush of your fingers on my side.
i tense the muscles in my shoulders and my knees,
determined to curl tighter into myself.
hasn’t this happened before–
the same beige bedroom,
overhead lamp,
scratchy cotton sheets.
from downstairs, i hear someone’s voice.
it’s like this–low low high pitched, and then,
the slap of a palm across the table.
i live all of the lifetimes at once–let the wires cross–
the smell of lite beer and dust wafts
through an open window, and i let my eyes sink shut,
and i remember how it felt back then,
last winter, before the ice melted.
i remember the shape
the porch light cast in the snow,
and how tacky the hot tub water felt on my fingers,
and the scratch of pine needles on the bottom of my feet.
somehow the irritation is easier to swallow than this bottomlessness.
in this bedroom, all i can smell is woodsmoke
and something floral which is coming from your skin.
i feel dried out.
you sigh in your sleep, and i am your mother for a moment–
cupping the back of your head in my hand
and brushing locks of hair off of your arm.
i dangle one leg off the side of the mattress
to make it so i only touch you on purpose
i dreamt this once,
this same journey down the windiest river,
aquamarine channels which drained to the same reservoir.
the water ushered me forwards.
maybe i caught a glimpse of your face in the tide–
maybe it was beautiful,
or maybe i could see the riverbottom through your forehead
i pinch this feeling between thumb and forefinger.
on the drive home
i let my hair down
and lean back into my seat.
the highway rears like a horse, and i grip the reins tighter.
Margaret Eleanor Gray is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. They graduated Oakland School for the Arts with an emphasis in Literary Arts in 2022. They currently attend University of California: Santa Barbara within the College of Creative Studies.