Easy

We walk, three of us
down bloor, past honest ed’s
pounding the pavement with long strides
and billowing skirts, abayas in the wind.
strange looks from awed passers by in the hot breeze,
we are in step, walking into convenience stores
looking for mango, tamarind, fig, pomegranate juice
the juices of the orient,
clothes from the orient, with oriental women
asking why there is a different piece of coloured cloth
tied around each of our heads
no we are not Indian.
We pay in clinking change for our mango, tamarind, fig, pomegranate juice,
step out into the outstretched sun’s rays
with our opposite from flip flop shoes and
short daisy skirts.

I wonder that the other two are so serene,
easy with their various juice bottles, and I am
angry for being stuck with the tamarind and for
being discomfited with
the centre of things that cannot hold, only my tightly tied scarf
holds me in, keeps my body from
going everywhere at once, bursting
from that sickly uneasiness as my heart pounds
the sidewalks with their shoes.

from my heart

with him I learned never to ask
questions. instead, I breathe in the words
that he speaks to me out of a miserly charity.
what he doesn’t share is
too much for him. too personal. we
aren’t close enough for details.
and my voice sounds low, crumbly over the phone
because I am in pieces, tired of
making believe that I am whole, or that the whole of me
cares about words that don’t come
from his heart.

the perfect sketch

For long I’ve been looking for
the perfect water lily
to draw in my high school sketchbook
to be monet except
a girl
and different. so not monet, really.
I keep my eye out for the perfect petals
to adorn the hundreds of clean
white pages following
the mottled sketch of grave stones
near the beginnings of the book,
the sketch that made me
stop.
Beyond my fear of colour
I have grand plans for when
I find this perfect sketch, when I
can lay claim to being
a word monet

Losing hope

I am losing hope as though it were change in my old torn pocket, the pieces falling away one after the other and being picked up by those more destitute than I.

I am losing hope as if it were a rose amidst a sand storm, its petals forcefully plucked and strewn into unfertile desert sand.

I am losing hope as though it was a pen, the ink fading with every word, every dotted letter, until the remains are frustrated inkless scratches on paper.

I am losing hope despite what you taught me about keeping my coins together, protecting the beauty within me from storms, carrying extra writing utensils with me at all times. Despite you. And we are both losing it, we can see it in each others eyes, the secret panic and bewildered loss of greatness. The thickening feeling of our throats.

Despite this, despite each being alone, why would we rather not go on than admit that we are losing hope?

the science of repair

I paint words to make ammends
mixing the mortar between broken down stones, bricks
but my oils, my acrylics, they all melt away
on these canvases of fury.
I am a painter of murky, obscure images
shadows of apologies that no amount
of calculation can fix.