September 8, 2014 | Occasus | Issue 4 | Fiction

Symphonic

But we were young, did not need much
To make us laugh instead, and touch,
And could not hear ourselves above
The arias of death and love.

                        -“Recitative,” A.E. Stallings

 
Our apartment was never quiet.
The shrill laugh of the woman upstairs,
her heels clacking on parquet floors
in harmony with the trickle of the toilet,
sink, bathtub – something always dripping –
and the slow click of radiators
adjusting to the winter night. We adjusted too,
had sex under thick blankets when the heat
left our feet untouched;
but we were young, did not need much.

 
Years were mayflies to our eyes,
flitting by and dying faster
than we could count them.
We grasped each other in the night,
clinging, still unknowing, to the waking hours,
and cursing the sleep that would steal
even seconds from our love. But some mornings,
when our eyes had hours to take in the light
that thin curtains could not contain, were enough
to make us laugh instead, and touch

 
trailing fingertips to skin, brush
lips. When was the last time we kissed?
Was it on the grey couch with ripped seams,
our bodies pushed together at one end, bare legs
at sharp angles and hands that held
too tight, leaving bruises like ripe plums
in the summer sun? No; it was at the front door,
me pushed flat against the yellow wall, you
surrounding me like October fog. We hugged
and could not hear ourselves above

 
the laughter of the woman upstairs,
the click of heels and dripping of
the kitchen sink. I listened as you closed
the door, the metal stairs like drums
for your banging feet. You stomped down
five flights before I couldn’t hear
them anymore. Your rhythm continued
in my head, rushing blood
and memories making melodies of
the arias of death and love.

 

ROBYN OBERMEYER is a fourth year student at Western University studying English Language and Literature and Creative Writing. She loves music, poetry and art above all else, and she has begun to work on her first collection of poetry. She lives in London with her partner of three years.