Ache

It's an existential ache more than an angst.

Not quite a crisis or a culmination,

more like a winter morning 

when you crane your head out the window,

watching drizzle turn to mist before it swallows

the sun whole - but the ticking clock 

still tells you

it's only the start.

If a day is a journey then

I need to find a better map -

I'm strolling in circles and getting lost,

hiding the world in the bags under my eyes.

If a day is a progression then

why are mine so circular, how can I ever

find meaning in this neurotic carnival where

I'm strapped to the chair of the ferris wheel and

morning always leads to night no matter where

I look; and nothing matters, that's the problem.

Nothing matters.

If no (wo)man is an island then

I need to stop burning bridges and boats -

perhaps I can't escape

anyway

and

my collarbones will smell of sun

and not smoke. Maybe wo(man) is

a desert of thirst. Maybe there are no oceans

here - only mirages and the occasional

oasis, desire mixing with memory

until you can almost hear the bluebird

but

my throat is still parched.

Spring hasn't reached where I am yet;

I'll be patient. Winter fog still settles

in my bones, and the countries of my body

give birth to no flowers, dance in the moonlight

with no thundering rainstorm. It's cold

and quiet. It's quiet. I could

sleep for months. I could sleep.

Damn this cement and concrete

Do you know what it's like

to be woken by birdsong and golden sun?

I miss walking down

paths of a forest I was deliriously

in love with. Mapping the soil under

my sandals and the sun on my hair,

tracing the veins of red leaves on my 

downy arms and telling myself 

this is how life ought to be lived.

I'm so far from my forest.

From my birdsong and shaded paths,

folk songs and moonlit night walks. 

I never want to forget

what true joy feels like.

As though all of life wants to rejoice,

all at once, in my belly. My smile goes

beyond me, and I can't hold it in any more.

The sun is setting against horizon of Gulmohurs

and orange petals are falling at my feet

and I just walked

to the mossy well and waved 

to the turtles,

and climbed a tree and sang to the sky,

wove a blanket of golden sun and slept on a roof;

I never want to forget the feeling of rock

under bare feet and rain against bare face,

the sound of wind thundering through trees

and tousling back hair, I never want to forget.

Damn this cement and concrete,

The artificial flower beds and manicured lawns.

Damn the glass windows and clean white walls.

Damn me if I ever get used to this life.

Exhale

Mist settles on the lamp-lit streets,
stretching across my arms like a moan.
The horizon trembles in an effort to stay whole.

Poetry writes itself on the cobblestones.
Open the blinds to the sun-clear day, wait
for dusk to streak the sky gold, then wait
for grey. Rain rings in my ears. Cold grief
and shiver. I forget,

and I scrape memory off my skin
like a frozen ocean. A fractured dream.

Inhale first. You know how.
And again.
Breathe out, slow as a movie, into the night
choked with fog. The smoke rises, curls around
my face until I can't recognize myself anymore.

The sound of exhale. The fear of forget. The life of a life.

All of me

If you ask me what I'm learning in college I just realized I can tell you in a single line:
to live with contradictions (both yours and mine).

I can sniff them out like a dog at an airport now -
in literature class when the dust starts to settle

just shake it up.
There's no black and white.
No right and wrong.
Every duality has a hundred hidden shades
behind the image of itself -

and I

I understand
I'll get an A in the damn essay
but my god

what if it all ends and the books are put back in the shelf
and I still don't know how to live my life
because I'm learning -

I'm learning damn well how to live with your contradictions,
I can forgive, I can see the hundred masks behind a single face,
and I tell myself I'll be okay, be okay,

but what if I can't forgive the contradictions in myself?
What if I know I shouldn't and yet I must
box everything in neat categories
and weep about what doesn't fit?

What if I don't understand why I don't fall in love -
or I do, a hundred times, hold it to my chest as if I'm drowning,
and then let it go - to the wind - like a hundred hidden birds -

as if I swallowed all the water and painted a face on the newborn sun
and everything is blossom and bud, freedom and forgetfulness,
there's no need for a lifeboat, there's no need for you

just me
all of me - but -

can you forgive me for that?
Can I?

Winter sun

Everything breaks through into blossom
by 2pm, a single shade of sunkissed afternoon.
My skin shines like marble, smells of flowers.

There's nothing as hopeful
as winter sun
nothing as truthful.

A sheer cloak, pale gold
over the trees
over your particular midday smile
and my hair.

Everything is clear and bright
and things that don't make sense
don't matter

the horizon has never been so clear
I can count the leaves on trees
I can shrug off the weight of winter
of cold grief and shiver

everything breaks through into blossom
and you can really live this day
by 2pm

but then it ends all too soon
wintergrey and ice
shiver comes to rest
darkness against sky
and lost birds.