Garvin, I hear your Queens accent, your quick, quiet hoarseness, your nervous chuckle. Christine, I hear those tiny golden bells chiming in your words and laughter. Zdrazil, I hear your deep tenor, your booming laugh, your fierce and solemn words in that last conversation.

My people, I call you back.

One after another I conjure you: your voices, your love, your bright eyes. You once smiled, and sparkled, and shone your light upon me. I still hear your laughter. I still love you.

How could I have known I would need to remember your laughter, by Lauren K. Alleyne

the way it ricocheted—a boomerang flung 
from your throat, stilling the breathless air.

How you were luminous in it. Your smile. Your hair 
tossed back, flaming. Everyone around you aglow.

How I wanted to live in it those times it ignited us 
into giggles, doubling us over aching and unmoored

for precious minutes from our twin scars—
the thorned secrets our tongues learned too well

to carry. It is impossible to imagine you gone, 
dear one, your laugh lost to some silence I can’t breach,

 from which you will not return.


Click here for more information about Lauren K. Alleyne.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast