I play with elegy when I think of you, string words and phrases, hang
them out to dry and let the wind be a messenger of tenderness, give
you the touch of my hand on yours like I’m beside you whispering verse
as though it’s going out of fashion. You were made by the love songs
out of marble and silk, lyrical promises straight out of the night in
black and silver, and I hold your voice, thread it through my fingers,
filaments glowing golden, fibre, invisible strings that tie my heart to
yours, arteries that pulse with mine, your name a beating valve.
There’s a space where you should be, bed like a crime scene waiting
for forensics to diagnose melancholia, the taste of solving the riddle of
you, kiss me, tell me it’s like magic and we’re the angel and the devil
if the thread of the fates got tangled. Lying awake thinking this could
only happen in one lifetime and it happened with you and a bottle of
wine on a Monday, paint peeling and it smells like a longing I don’t
have yet, wistfulness in peach and white, the electrics of you and me
somewhere, feelings in a vacuum, hollow with intensity. I found you
in the strangest of worlds, ice on the pages of our story, flowers that
peek in, bright and violet and new, the scent of spring carried in the
air, fresh, escaped, immortal somehow, the immovable memory of cold
hands and conversations by the window in March.
Katie Proctor is a poet from Yorkshire, England. Since they can remember they have loved to write, whether it be prose, poetry or stories, and writing will always be their first love. Nowadays, they write freeform poetry and prose often regarding their experience with love, relationships and mental health. Their debut collection of poetry, Seasons, was published in August 2020, and their sophomore collection A Desire for Disaster will be published later this year, both by Hedgehog Poetry. Outside writing, they are a student with a passion for literature, history and classics, and are a big fan of Shakespeare. They love to act and plan to study English Literature at university. You can find them on Twitter @katiiewrites and Instagram @katiiewrites.
