“isn’t It Funny How Silence Can Undress Two Bodies & Press Them Into Each Other? & When I Say Funny

“isn’t it funny how silence can undress two bodies & press them into each other? & when I say funny I mean the feeling that stretches itself out in your stomach while you watch someone cry into their palms & turn their face to the night before they walk away from you for what you know is the last time before there is new sharp & boundless city between the both of you forever & when fall came, boys sat up in their beds alone & gasping while their hearts rattled out the ghosts of every unspoken love that dragged them there & then a whole country crawled itself across the ocean & went to war.”

— Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, from “Ok, I’m Finally Ready to Say Sorry for that One Summer” in The Crown Ain’t Worth Much