My dad makes his leek and potato soup the same way he makes his arguments:
boiling hot and intolerable, nauseating, sour.
He makes it burn the roof of my mouth, leave my chest scalding with every sizzle, every drop, every taste.
I look for that same sourness in every meal I eat.
I search for the lime that could’ve been squeezed in,
for soft, collapsing chunks of leek caught between my teeth,
for anything that stings enough to feel familiar.
I turn over spoonfuls,
watch the surface closely for something rising
:a slick of oil, a bitterness,
some small violence i can recognise.
Sometimes, I convince myself it’s there:
in the sharp edge of vinegar, in broth that’s just a little too hot,
in something left bubbling on the hob.
I keep tasting,as if i’ve misplaced it and it might still be found.
From time to time i crave its pungent smell;I yearn to wait for my taste buds to heal again,
to sit upright, teeth gritted at the dinner table.
The burning feeling is something I can’t replicate:
it’s homely and frightening, lonely and warm.
My dad’s leek and potato soup sits at the bottom of my stomach,
sloshing back and forth,
only revealing itself,
ever,
in burps of arguments.
Mar 22
Mar 22, 2026 at 3:04 PM UTC
The thought of your face
hovers at the edge of the table,
a quiet heat
softening yesterday
and folding into my breakfast plate.
I stay with you
until the ground beneath us
decides to move,
until the small rituals of living
push the world out of my hands.
you stay threaded through
every motion,
everything i can think or
feel.
when my eyes close,
the air rearranges;
you become a lesson
in a language i almost remember,
something else, something new,
(something borrowed, something blue).
your outline drifts through my dreams,
through the stillness of photographs.
i catch my own reflection there
a version of me suspended
in the moment you were still you.
a version of me
that
left with you too.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 5:08 PM UTC
We slept stacked like secrets:
you above, me below,
the bunk bed creaking whenever
one of us laughed too hard.
Inside jokes only we knew,
jokes that lived at night:
when bedtime lasted forever
and silence was impossible.
Your arm dangled over the edge,
prancing along the rail above my head.
Crumbs fell like offerings
from your top bunk.
The ladder knew all our plans;
every heavy footstep, every handprint.
The dark held our laughter
in every wall.
Even now,
when I can’t sleep,
I swear i can hear it:
your bed creaking above my head,
you making me laugh.
Feb 23
Feb 23, 2026 at 4:21 PM UTC