Fever Dream
by Zoe Cunniffe
you came back with brand new eyes,
bobbing bloodless beneath your skull.
i stretched out my hands in the boiling heat,
thread my fingers through your hair.
you used to be saltwater: splashing,
seeping, soaking. now you’re golden
like a gut-punch, edges melting,
seams splitting, coiling around me
like steam. you are a heat wave and a human,
a flame i can’t fan.
you used to be silk and distance,
the creak of a sunrise, untouchable.
you used to creep into my dreamland,
and now the sheets are sweat-stained,
and you are a fever dream: noxious, blazing,
and impossible to miss.
bobbing bloodless beneath your skull.
i stretched out my hands in the boiling heat,
thread my fingers through your hair.
you used to be saltwater: splashing,
seeping, soaking. now you’re golden
like a gut-punch, edges melting,
seams splitting, coiling around me
like steam. you are a heat wave and a human,
a flame i can’t fan.
you used to be silk and distance,
the creak of a sunrise, untouchable.
you used to creep into my dreamland,
and now the sheets are sweat-stained,
and you are a fever dream: noxious, blazing,
and impossible to miss.
Zoe Cunniffe is a poet and singer-songwriter from Washington, DC. She has previously been published in literary journals such as Meniscus and The Showbear Family Circus.