Peach Fuzz

Caroline Hughes

ISSUE NO. 1 • To Have a heart

When thinking about love for this piece, I thought about a relationship that has affected my past few years at school. This relationship has changed a lot while at school, and is being affected as this period of our lives comes to an end.

When we met you shook my hand

you heedlessly picked it up

already fragile and peach skinned

and held it so tight that your uneven

and bitten-down-to-the-wick fingernails

pierced right through my delicate derma

to my cloying flesh

bleeding nectar down your unabashed fingers

and pooling between where our

shoes were merely kissing on the ground

I predicted I could be your ripe

flavor for at least a month

Till I inevitably became rotten

and you craved something that wouldn’t

pinch your gums as much when

I asked you to take a bite of me again and again

A tear-off paper calendar shows

a pile of weeks that stack into months

I consciously tuck my nose and mouth

into the hem of your moth-eaten t-shirt I stole

Masking my unavoidable aroma

Putrid and intoxicating

strong enough to erode any lingering attachment

You now fit your face

in between my neck and shoulder

and inhale slowly without recoiling

I feel the corner of our lips flick up

“Your hair tickles,”

I go to move it but your hand

Grabs mine with such care

I forget I’m supposed to be bruised

Your nose traces the tiny hairs that never grow behind my ear

“its like peach fuzz.”