My Take

When he walked into that room I changed my mind... as always. I wanted to say something but couldn't because it would be rude. So I let it be. I knew it was going to hurt and it did. A lot. And then not so much. I am no longer scared of physical pain...although my own whimpering has disgusted me quite a bit. Maybe it'll not be so bad the next time. Maybe I'll gag myself.

To her with love

I measure every smile I meet,

the depth of every grieving sorrow

and the insolent gaiety carrying

the fragrance of her dried up tears.

In them I can smell the impatient scent of love

and the stench of fruitless pursuit

and useless perseverance.

I still own her book of love sonnets

with crumbling pages that carry the mark of sullied love.

I read them in my busiest moments,

which smell of burning paper and wet mud.

Worth Preserving

I want that moment to exist behind a closed door somewhere and know that I can walk in anytime I need to and anytime I want. With food in the centre and boys on the phone and little babies who turn over and demand to be burped. Where we tell tales over and over again just to have that one last laugh or simply to forget the story. Where certain others lament the lack of maal or the fact that we can't afford it coz people owe us money...In that room we are the three most beautiful people I have come across. I'm thinking it as I take my monkey arms and start measuring them against the milky softness of the baby's. I'm thinking it when I look at beautiful big eyes that somehow look childish all the time and I'm thinking it when I sit, legs stretched out under the table and declare I'm hot simply to hear no one rebuff it.

The boy does a brilliant imitation and I laugh until I there are tears because that image of me is so atrocious that I actually know what he's talking about. Sigh. In that room is where it all falls away and I come to sickening realisations for which the food is in no way responsible. Then the baby becomes the mother with hand motions that remind one of a lotus blossom and it's all warm and fuzzy and sleepy. It's nice. Worth preserving.

Hullabaloo

Your tears are weird. When I touch them, they feel like paper; like you could tear them. We should do that one day. You and I and the other children. We'll stand on the highest ledge and throw your tears down from the building. I can almost see it in my mind... It will be like when people throw confetti at weddings and it falls in this floating shower of white on everyone.

No? I would...If i had such tears.