Monthly Archives: December 2013

it was winter, several years ago, as the year came to an end. we had a sudden hunger for spices, and we sought to satiate it. when we walked down the stairs to the restaurant, we saw a woman sitting by herself at a small table under a window. we were told her name, and it slipped on our tongues—the circle of birth, life and death disclosed in three simple syllables. we knew it wasn’t her given name, but we were here, she was there, and our fortunes lay between us. we decided that she read them.

i went first. i struggled to remove my necklace and slid it on to her. she held it in her hands and asked me if i mingled with energies. she saw my spirit guides around us, watchful and protective. she spoke of loves, of aches, of changes in paths. my fortune tends to shift with every move of the cup, with the coffee ground, the warmth of the alloys, and my ability to smile. i feared that my ennui, sehnsucht, spleen or existential angst would come to light, and i cut open my chest as an apology. she told me not to worry, that i was exceptionally safe. i listened and gave her the benefit of the doubt; she and i shared something between the silver of my necklace, even if it meant nothing.

you went next, while i waited in the afterglow of my rhymes. when you came back, you were overwhelmingly still, with pupils cimmerian in your chestnut eyes. you didn’t explain what had happened, and i didn’t push the matter—i couldn’t reconcile myself with humanity if i didn’t believe part of our nature could be explained by some form of inner torment or secret. i felt guilty for my reading, treacherous even, that you were not included in it. you should have been there, i know. how desperately you longed to be a part of it. i felt sorry that i couldn’t include you, though i was quietly relieved by the thought of a future with no holds barred. there was no denying the power of my walls, and you always stood in the trenches.

we left the restaurant that night, you and i, with burning mouths stinging in silence between our lots. someone had to see it.

she saw the back of his head everywhere that day. she also saw his face, his eyebrows, his nose, the shape of his forehead, his head of hair. she saw how he walked in the fish market through a man’s demeanour. she saw his arms in the way another held up a newspaper. his skin could’ve been this skin as it lay flat against the wobbly table, with tea trembling against the glass. he shared features with the entire world; he was reflected in a small spoon, he tasted nothing like sugar cubes.

she didn’t know what he wanted from her that day. she hadn’t asked and wouldn’t beg the sky for an answer. it was likely the first time in a long time that he had knowingly sat down and called her to mind (or rather stewed, mulled over, cooked these thoughts in a pot of boiling water)—until his attention had somehow reached her, through that trusty metaphysical motion of ideation.

every time she saw him everywhere that day, she was startled, then vaguely relieved. she knew he still existed somewhere in the universe, and even though he was long gone, she conceded that she hadn’t properly mourned him. she hadn’t had the chance; she saw him flee from the rain, only to get caught under the hail. he could never follow through with the transaction. she was waiting to be given the satisfaction of his regret. sometimes it is the only way to accelerate the mourning process. she was waiting for this, still. it took a certain willingness to admit it.

that day, she saw him in the way that we mistake our shadows for ghosts. she thought of the memories she didn’t keep; she thought of the ones she would never forget. she wished she had stopped to consider what hadn’t happened. we devise our lives through the unknown—these moments, this past, they were never more than what they were. she regretted knowing that she would never remember anything from what she had already forgotten.

here or there,
i’ll hang a garland on your tree.

there is a line of black on the arm. it isn’t a scar, it is ink. everything is imperfect—the missing letter in your name; the lone pomegranate seed on the living room carpet; the dust behind the dust that was removed; my many hands casting shadows against the wall; the artificial sleep that tires more than it restores. this house isn’t ours. nothing is really ours, though nothing is ever lost.

the sun is setting behind rooftops. we talk about the sky before we talk about what’s underneath. the sky is low, in shades of purple and dusty pink. i am telling you about the sky so i can tell you about my womb, and how deeply it aches. my womb is in a state of unrest. the blood perpetually implodes within me. the lining deteriorates, sheds itself, and falls through, like grains in an hourglass slipping by, one after the other.

we are the colour of the sky and as wide as its expanse. i am your heart and you are my ceiling. we are as deep as the sky and never without stars. we are as far as the sun and never without a well. one star looks out from the sky and through the window. it flickers and is dead, only we do not know that. the star has been there for as long as we can remember, but it has already abandoned us.

under the sky, we listen to the humming in my womb as it bears witness to the memory of unsettled energy.

under the sky, we think twice and we linger, in the deep.

i let the water run as i lay flat on my back in a tub that still smells slightly of bleach. i am merging with the porcelain in lieu of the soil and meeting the roots of all the flowers i cannot own. this ritual is so much more than watching my fingertips shrivel up, more than this conscientious cleansing of every nook and crease, more than the way the water feels between my toes as i sift through the letters. i have never refused to walk; this is an unmoored inclination.

i acknowledge every tile and every crack as distinct and charming entities, each with their own story. always they welcome me back by way of a make-believe tea party. i sink in without a doubt; my head lingers in a daze as i hold my breath, my face covered by sheaths and eyelids. i break the silence with a sigh, and my voice resonates as i sing along in remembrance. while there would be no soil waiting for me if i fell through the ground, there would likely be the neighbour there—an old man quiet in an old man’s way, tending to his flowers, never surprised.

oh mary of silence
you break my heart with a smile

this is not a pause-resume situation, evidently. everything has changed—who you were then, who you are now, who you will be. all these versions of you cohabit as you drift in and out of the elements. there is no predicting. you will make do when you surface again, in a wistful song or among the flowers.

her nails were like claws. her nails were like claws at the back of his neck digging for something that wasn’t there. she went back in time, always and forever in a straight line toward a point that could no longer be reached. she was thirsty and tired. she had debts to pay. she caught an eye for a tooth and looked way beyond until she could see no more.

he brought her a yellow rose; it could not have been red. as an answer she pinched the thinnest skin on her wrist—it was the only way for her to discern between what was and what wasn’t. she wondered if the same pathways were taken, if he could kneel under that same tree, and say the same things without her there, but with the thought of her there.

(all these years in the immediacy of a past.)

she didn’t remember any of the lies he told her, nor the lies that she told him; she only knew that they had lied to spare themselves from the flood, and that they would never know it had stopped raining.

it is important to sit in silence, like this. it is important not to talk. otherwise i catch myself looking out of the window, scrutinising the horizon for something out of character, a glitch in the motions, an authorised distraction. maybe i will see something in my line of sight that is worthy enough of a lull, like a car crash or an old lady and her mirror. instead there are only crows and the choreography of waves, and i can’t tell you about it because we are not that close.

when i was a child i would often stand in front of the living room window and stare at the st-lawrence river. given the way the current moved, i could tell where indents and rocks lay hidden underneath the flow. i knew by heart the curvatures of the current, yet fixing a whirlpool point would cause for it to disappear. i would focus and watch a pattern fade, only to see it return in the corner of my eye as soon as i averted my gaze. i found comfort in the permanence of the flow; it told me we can all reemerge from the depths.

i see you looking at me when i look out, i catch your eyes follow my eyes in search of what i am distracted by, and i apologise. it is important to come out, to witness the movements of the bodies, to see lips open and close and talk to each other, for hands to touch, and not our own. it is important to do all of these things, and to sit in silence, around them.

a bite in the scar tissue. it is the size of a dime—a dime that was heated up with a flame and placed on my arm with the sole purpose of burning the skin. in time it became a moon with two stars, or a happy accident in a deliberate act. i remember thinking that it couldn’t wait, that it needed to be done. sometimes it still itches, as if to say: don’t forget.

wounds heal in time, in stages. they slip through crust, mantle and outer core until reduced to ashes in the innermost part of the earth.

you are six years old now. you are the age of a child. you developed the ability to hear and manipulate sounds. you understand what same and different means. you start to grasp the concept of time. you know a couple thousand words, and you would like to write down the words you know, but you only write down your name. you are six years old now, but in the rumpled skin in the fold of my arm you never became more than who you were when you were born.

twines and stalks bending,
regardless of surface heat or texture.

these are your natural boidae
spiraling across the benumbed,
never abdicating.

with clenched teeth and etiolated eyes

whose leather-thorned,
flesh-petaled,
bone-stemmed rose
will you follow?

may those who love us not drown at sea,
may they not suffer poverty in their old age,
may they not pass away without saving their faith.

we got off the train and walked outside. the sea greeted us under the sun. we climbed up the hills of üsküdar, searching for the elusive tomb of a sufi saint. we followed signs on narrow cobblestone streets, left, right, left, until we reached an opening where women secured scarves around their necks. i gathered my hair, took my shawl and wrapped it over my head.

“all the wishes i have wished for here have come true,” the mother said.

we walked up the stairs. women and a lone man were bowing by the high iron fence; some held prayer books under their noses. older ladies offered sweets for the good luck of our hopes, but also for their own. i followed behind the mother until there was nowhere else to go. i cupped my hands and faced the courtyard. “hey, what’s up.” i wondered if the soul of the dead could see through me. my inner talk went on, unprepared, much like all supernatural conversations which are stripped of heartfelt sincerity. perhaps i should’ve thought of something else; ottoman sailors came before me many moons ago and knew of better things to say. mine were the utterances of a skeptic put under an imaginary spotlight, a bad seed contaminating the crop.

in truth there was something i very much wished for. every morning, there lay this thunderous desire in my gut, pulling at my throat. it was a hoarse want, voiced in rumbling whispers only when the moment called for it. if i were to express it too forcefully, i feared it would not unfold. a pox on my wish. yet there was no rhyme nor reason to my fear, as my want was part of the deal, part of the program, within the realm of reality. still, i often wondered about the various gestures that would tip the odds. don’t act just dream, don’t dream just act—such a careful dance to uphold.

it would have made sense for me to wish for this want as i stood by the mystic’s grave, but i didn’t. after two arbitrary amen i swept my hands across my face and i turned around. i studied the cemetery, the stone wall, the roses. i spotted a kitten huddling in a flower pot. i knelt beside him and let all of the love i kept inside flow toward him. i am neither above nor below the matters of the soul. my trust and devotion have simply tended to take on different shapes.