What is love without touch?
Without the lingering caress of fingers
that sing a song of grief,
a hunger
like a seaside mist, where gulls cry invisible, so lost
and miserable without your love that was gentle and blind
to my awkward kind of being, my odd way of seeing
myself …
Crazed plate on a dusty shelf …
But you loved me for who I am, your gender anagram.
I miss your touch, much as the sea misses
the sun’s kisses, as day powers down
What is love without touch?
I close my eyes, you rise next to me,
your love inside me, as we close the circle
to a universe space, where distance is nothing,
where love is whispered breaths of passion
moist on my breasts, and love cries as we move
as one.
I open my eyes, you are gone …
Love is a ghost, a grey dove with wings that are wraithlike,
memory fakes that break the heart
What is love without touch?
This cursed virus that preys in silence, building walls
where loneliness falls like goodbye tears.
When your face disappears from the screen,
and I am left staring at a grey abyss …
I miss you …
No voice on a phone, or an image that beams
like a ghost in my dreams can replace
the touch of your face, the safety of
your arm’s embrace
my wholeness path, my lightning and thunder
my passion that plunders an ocean of grief
What is love without touch?
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Tina Healy is an advocate, peer support worker and an elder in the transgender community. She is a dad to her children, grandma to her grandchildren, and just ‘Tina’ to her community.
Bent Street 