(comfortable silence) by Olivia Burgess

You smile at me, brimming and uncontained 

And anyway, I’ve been wondering what peace feels like.

The long, tin can phone call, a book on a train,

an exhaling hair tie. A bra cartwheeling on a

dallianced washing line. Is that peace, it’s open eyes ?

Yet these sweetnesses only come when you’re around,

this weight from my chest

tumbling to brightness. As the sun goes down,

rises, puffs like a pipe cleaner, you are still here, holding the dawn -

a hand out the window, light spilling through ring-clad fingers

I didn’t know that you could look prettier close up, but that’s

the thing about art. You can keep looking,

looking, and you’ll never run out

of time to observe.

At night I take more walks in my mind

than we could ever get to, more laps around a single neighbourhood

I could ever walk you home from. Very rarely,

only sometimes, I’m allowed to glimpse the moon

and it feels like stepping into cool water, a wind through sweating curtains,

holding your true face up to a blushing night. That’s it -

how it feels -

The look on your face

your hands

your eyes,

brightening

---

“I originally wrote this poem on a work shift, destined for the person to whom this poem is written for. This self-enforced notion of privacy meant I didn't want to submit this piece, to wave these feelings in the air so brazenly, but maybe, now realising, maybe I can.”

Olivia Burgess (she/her) is a 17 year old poet from the UK. When she's not composing poetry based on nature, her inner monologue, or her muse, she likes to consistently tell unnecessary jokes and stare at the moon, for no apparent reason. You can find her on Instagram at @light_green.eyes