By Nadia Ashaary
You can forget, I can’t help but forgive you that,
but if you think of me, please think of us fondly.
She gamesomely teases me, “Brick bridges.”
As I’ve amalgamated and coarctated the syllables of “Bin the pickles in the fridge.”
You’re in your sleep-clothes, on my floor on her bedclothes,
because she’s a good nester, her down and duvets in warm piles and layers;
your slice falls apart in cheese and tomatoes; she’s perched in one of my un-legged chairs;
you litter crusts and crumbs like petals of a rose; she’s licking clean her plate with her fingers.
Do you still wonder if you’re sad because you’re sad or because you want to be sad?
Do I know what you mean when you say it feels good to be sad?
You’re so sensitive. Keep it up, love. Great job, you, your great heart unreserved.
When you stop bleeding, don’t believe you’ve no blood left to lose -
believe it’s because in your feelings, you’ve regrown bones.
I am branches arranging mazes, like white spaces between lines and words, reaching;
she is the sturdy trunk grounding me, a castle fortress safeguarding.
This author regrets nothing. All the nothing she has done.
I’ll talk less of myself and still she’ll wait and let me go on,
and remind me at the end that I’ll never lessen, over and over again.
I’m reading. I’m living. I remain relying heavily on context clues.
I want to hear you argue more about the media lying to us,
divulging fragments of yourselves with intent smiles and pregnant gazes;
you know I yearn to collect all that I can learn from your presence,
your miens, your hands, her hands, your countenance,
indulging me all compliant; my hunger to understand, your contentment.
While you’re outdoors - I miss the sound of your shoes -
flatten some leaves underfoot in my name, won’t you?
You’re making lawless love with mankind, politically aware and casually aloof, flippantly removed.
She’s hunting slippery, side-stepping justice down in a global pursuit.
To a world that doesn’t need but still keeps us, I offer my own;
you will always have for your heads, a haven, a home -
the refrigerator's adequate, my blankets welcome.
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