PERSON Poem: I Do Not Love Her, by Aaron Shah

She does not appear in my dreams, I simply dream of her.
I stare at mountains and see her face in their contours.

Before slumber, I pull her from my desk drawers and paint her across me. I trace the edges of her head with the outline of my shoulder. I colour the hue of her skin with the coldness of my empty bed. I hum her playful jests as working tunes. I give her an embellished title before mounting her above the headboard.

Her hair sways across her shoulders as trees
And her smile peaks through her stubborn gaze.
Her doe eyes coat me in bewilderment such that
Her blinks return me to reality in my empty apartment.
I pray she looks at me. My pleas to God interrupt her speech from entering my ears. The Freshness of air in her sight makes the city smog sit longer in my lungs. She is bathed in Sunshine, the same rays which narrowly avoid my skin.
The sharp ringing of her laughter in my ears distracts from the endless silent nights.

In my sleep, I dream of the days when I saw her.
My heart palpitates at every breath she ushered: every instance her chest subtly brought closer
To mine.
In reminder of how my heart could behave, I have forgotten how it usually sounds. Does it flutter with the same intensity? Does its buzzing have such high a frequency?
Do I too carry the whimsy of a hummingbird that I should now have its heart?
The joy of her presence tugs at my skin as the sun above her head roasts me alive.
She holds my withered body with the graciousness of the grass below her.
I faintly see the swirl of flowers through blurred eyes.

I wake in a hospital bed with IVs like wires fueling a machine.
Skin wet from morning dew. White bandages covered in green mushy blurs. My skin burning like still on fire.
The doctor’s voice pierces the haze of hysteria. I was found unconscious in the forest.
I return to my city apartment basked in a pale blue dimness.
I stare at the painting above my headboard of a tree in a shrine of light.