Letters in the Freezer: Almost Lover I

By Sophie Ezzell

Almost Lover,


Did you use your hands

today to open flames and fold

metal? And did your fingers cut

an apple into too-thick

slices and did you eat them

with peanut butter

like we used to  

when we were too young


to cook on the stovetop? Can you 

still feel the heat

from the burns scarred on the inside

of your palm? If I touched your hand

would I burn too

or would we just sweat

and drown in each other’s

smoke? Like we almost


did that night

in your mother’s car

underneath a burnt out street

light. When your hands

made impressions in my hips,

left hallowed outlines in my skin

like hands that had been pressed

and dried inside wet cement.

The grooves in your callouses etched

half-whispered psalms

into my sides while your thumbs

strummed up

and down my rib cage. You separated 


your fingers inside my hair and pulled

the rest of me to the rest of you.

I asked you

to dismantle me, collapse

me, break me


down in your hands

like a weak sheet of metal

because you were the only one

I trusted to take me

and scar me and melt

the scars back to smooth

using the flames folded inside

the lines of your palms. But


you only touched

my cheek and offered

to take me

home.


Sophie Ezzell (she/her) is a queer urban Appalachian writer. Her work has appeared in Under the Sun, Aquifer, and Pidgeonholes, and has been nominated for a Pushcart. She recently graduated from Marshall University with a BA in Creative Writing and is now pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Oklahoma State University. Lately, her work has begun to explore the relationship between trauma and the Appalachian region. Since moving to Oklahoma, she has become afraid of wolf spiders, the ever-looming threat of tornadoes, and flat landscapes.

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