Christina Alaimo
It started while studying in Paris—surrounded by the Seine and all the Left Bank Greats. That’s a lie. It started with a girl, and the choice not to run screaming through the hills of Montmartre. It started with a feverish typing during a sort of self-help journey. Christina Alaimo started writing to heal and continues writing to feel.
What flags really mean
you said you were thinking about
the feeling of my dog’s heart beating
against your leg, a momentary awareness
of the closeness that exists against our skin
and the something between fingers and collarbones
collecting the images I’ll keep of us
when we’re no longer hearing the chirping
of birds and missing the calls we’ve become
unfeeling to like the light of this
city harboring this stream of
consciousness as I find my way
to the back of your neck and all that
has unsettled there in the years my
hairs grayed their way to shoulders
and I wonder if you’re feeling the
same weight of time—how it’s brought
us here, to this moment, on a day I’m
reminded of all that was lost in the
absence of pronouns or not wanting to
know what love looked like in the most
vibrant colors firing like flare guns in
your eyes each time you turned towards me
and saved me from being
anything but happy
©2020 West Trade Review
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