a summary of one

1

the henna on her hands fades
into faint glimpses of orange, her bangles
sit atop her desk, getting dusty
and rusted with the days.

the cake in the fridge slowly rots
with the time it takes her to rise from bed,
her beaded dress, wrinkled and pitifully stained
sits careless on a chair.

no need, no need for these things anymore.

on her left hand, the imprint of a ring remains,
the skin marked by one uniform pink crease.
but no sign of her diamond,
only a bunched thread trail leading to her balcony.

2

she is amongst the birds flying south,
leaves hurled upwards in winding fury,
lost helium balloons risen to the clouds,
and the beginnings of a weightless drizzle.

her dress is imbued with the rarest pearls,
dark hair adorned with ivory combs

and she is, lighter than air.

a continued sky

The orange-tinted sky has disappeared,
and in its wake, I am left looking up at a
heavy blue vastness with little hint
of the waning moon.

I will remember
a face from the past, like the
stars, so far off now, at the tips of my fingers.
And I will remember God and that
unyielding Mercy afforded to me in my moments of weakness.

I must accept these faint and short breaths
that are heard across the sky, and cease
praying for closer stars
or familiar faces.

The heavens remain, you do not.

a humble moment of light
dots the azure skies, and I feel I should
lift my arm and touch the apex of
its brilliance with my fingertip.

But I am told not to extend my hand,
so it stays limp at my side.

resilience

resilience is to be
human and free. and he is both: an ever-expanding depth
of sacrifice,
guided by nights of prostration
and overwhelming love.

he is
the underground railroad of hearts,
making night journeys from
one lamp-lit house to the next.

I must explain to him that resilience
is not strength.
it is
a deeply rooted pain, an unbearable
conservation of the soul, gathering shreds
of it in open palms,
and clenching fists with hope that
they will join together again

resilience is to be human and free.
he is both, the struggle
and the ends,
opening his eyes to
a land without the binds of slavery.

the things you do not know

I have under my fingertips, the things you do not know. They are in pages, in books, on lofty shelves towering above our heads. At first, I could thumb through them quickly, the dust particles embedding themselves in my lungs.

The things you do not know, I cannot tell you.

But whilst thumbing through them, I found some petals twittering towards the floor, dried and coated with the memories of a flowering knowledge built with true and simple words. Lifeless remnants of a garden I keep close, and will not discard out of profound selfishness.

I cannot tell you of the dew drops I find in the sunrise mist that soak the ends of my skirts. Nor the full moon I can almost taste while walking in dark air. Nor that at the tip of my mind is the night of the lunar eclipse when we both escaped into those orange shadows of night.

The things you do not know increase with time, growing into mountainous burdens kept secretly between these pages.

zephyr

a wind from paradise
awakens a longing heart
that only complains of its sadness
to its Lord.

-

the great peace
remains amongst quiet shuffling of calla lilies,
spreads over this valley,
over indigenous fruits planted by love
and remembering.

exhaustion

exhaustion extends beyond my limbs,
my shoulders bearing the brunt of some amount
of books and awkwardly stacked silence.

I am told more effort is required, what I offer is
little and crumbles in your hands. more effort,
more carrying of complex burdens that are not my own.

but I am busy and do not notice my slumping back,
only find it peculiar that
I can no longer see the sky.

orange sky

I am, as I always was,
turning my face to the sky–
it has an orange tint tonight, the bare
reflection of street lamps lining dark roads.

The sky is ruined by this city,
glaring eyes and lights scorching
the ever-fading stars,
a sole breeze is my company in late hours.

soon it will be too cold for night writing
in the balcony that overlooks the seasonal swimming pool,
soon it may be too late for composing
simplistic lines unburdened with the lusts of daytime.

the grey clouds hug the sliver of a moon,
crescented like a weak smile and faintly glowing
through the puffs of air. Silent sparks of rain follow,
and soon it is too late to stay outside.

night prayer

night prayer is
calm, unscented and
undisturbed. The words fall off
tongues, into the hands of
the angels,
scribes who dutifully record
every hour of desperation,
the trembling of upturned palms,
each moment of overwhelming sorrow for
sins committed against the soul.

but there is softness amongst these
quiet tranquil bodies,
foreheads to the ground
counting behind closed eyes
the blessings of God.

they are unable to enumerate them.