written and illustrated by Kezia Rice
listen to Kezia's reading of the poem here:
if
you
type
how often should i be hugged
into google
without having to click on a link
or digest an article
without having to think
the internet tells you
we need 4 hugs a day
for survival
we need 8 hugs a day
for maintenance
we need 12 hugs a day
for
growth
Oh.
Only during my relationship
did I engage in so much touch
the elongated lingering kind
when we lay on the sofa watching Premier League
his naps on my lap as I wrote my university essays
and at night
before and after
- never during -
sleep
he greeted me at the weekend
with a hug lasting as long as it took to catch up on our week
invariably a long time
though reality TV was our one shared interest
we rarely ran out of things to talk about
but
(big surprise)
our relationship was not sustained by one shared interest
after two and a half years
we
break
up
Oh.
I hadn’t been properly hugged in weeks
I took matters into my own lonely hands
and asked my dad and friends to hug me
(yes, it is a bit sad to ask)
(but desperate times mean swallowing your pride)
(see this poem’s title)
this was November
on barely 4 hugs a day
I was surviving
3 months later:
a ban on human touch so significant
it sparked countless articles
(including this one)
(probably lost in the depths of the internet)
elbow touches
waves from a doorstep
the warmth of a friend
formed in pixels on a screen
only couples in quarantine together
had sex and hugs on tap
I read in the paper about 'love in lockdown'
and felt literal vomit in my throat
I was mostly disgusted
(I was slightly jealous)
I was very un-touched
my insides colder
my mostly heartless heart
in an isolation of its own
mid-way through lockdown
I had a bit of a
break
down
I would explain here
why
I felt so panicked at the thought of life
but I didn’t
(still don’t)
know
what was happening to my mind
I think I knew I needed touch
I asked my dad for a hug
holding me
he told me
he had wanted a hug for weeks
hadn’t wanted to bother me
by asking
Oh.
Both of us
lonely
in the same house
doing nothing about it
we broke the distance
with a daily hug
sometimes it felt like a chore
but ritualised human touch is better than none
only once before in my life was I hugged enough for significant growth
winter mornings in the kitchen
enveloped by my mum and her thick woollen jumper
before we put the porridge on the hob
after school
I met her in her study
with the view of the postcards on the bookshelf
and the plum trees out the window
as I sat on her lap
and told her about my day
when it got dark at night
we met at the fireside
our cashmere jumpers touching
as we looked through magazines of clothes too frivolous to buy
that winter
I didn’t know
it would be the last time
Oh.
It turned out she had
just days or weeks
or more or less at home
I held her tighter
her body always frailer
(if I was hurting her she never said)
she still let me sit on her lap
until she was no longer sitting
but lying
down
on the bed
into death
Oh.
I still sometimes sit
on my auntie’s lap
my sister’s
a friend’s
a lover's
but never
do I ever feel
so like a child again
as when I was
so tightly
so fiercely
held
so unselfconsciously
loved.
Kezia Rice is the Founder and Editor-in-chief of imprint mag.zine. As well as running imprint, she has made a podcast @kezsbookshelf, and can often be found taking scissors and a sewing needle to her clothes or having a refreshing dip in one of Lancashire's rivers. She has previously written for imprint about everything from living without a car to the problematics of Love Island to her passion for charity shopping, and her lockdown sewing experiments, part one and two!
Comentarios