bad news

I went to sleep with the flurry of bad news revolving in my mind, a lullaby. I woke up for fajr and it was still there. Bad news tried to wake me up at 9am, but I refused. I suppose eventual bad news is the same, or worse, than punctual bad news. But that never mattered to me. I'll push it away as far as I can, I'll sleep it off. It numbs my fingers like the persistent cold on winter nights, without gloves. The same way it numbs my heart from feeling any remorse for guilty words and phrases uttered in anger.

Bad news piles up. I begin to think life has little more to offer than this.

from behind

Here is my sister
living on somewhere else,
not here.
Here is my father
wearing his good shirts to weddings,
not ours.

I know sadness happens everywhere,
but not like here.

The world constricts my
chest, because I loved where
I should not have.
And who I should have loved
was forsaken.

I sold my loyalty for a few
coins. And treason's
medicine burns my throat
going down.

And where I should have been, was left empty.

left

I was just thinking of you
when you came to the door,
stood there a while
but didn't knock.

you left.

right there is
where I bought those roses
and made believe that you gave them to me,
how sad, how sad was I?

waiting is left,
in the shade, in the heat
or autumn months or winter.
it doesn't matter when
you're waiting
time is all the same.

taken

Sometimes I wonder about the places
where we stop breathing.
the places our eyes roll up before we
have a chance to say what it is
that is a beautiful word,
or after we say it.

Sometimes I wonder
where the rose petals go, really go
after they're strewn onto the soil
and where the sounds of elegies end
when recited with difficulty
at edges and centres of graveyards.

Where do widows keep
their memories of better days-
in studded jewelry boxes and photo
albums that fade like their memories,
as the years
drag on.

this is an apology

I'm sorry.

Sorry that I was born to feel,
that I will never be good enough
to satisfy - that my words fell
short of what you needed.

I'm sorry that I stopped writing
because I lost hope in
the kindness of people.

I'm sorry that after February
I was too frightened to be alone.

I'm sorry that I smiled when my heart was
ripped to shreds and when you asked
me
if I was alright,
I'm sorry that I lied.

I'm sorry that my hope in You has
run low sometimes.
I'm sorry that my words were not
truthful, that I'll live to see
my mother
become a guest in our houses.
I'm sorry I didn't tell her I loved her
every day before she left.

I'm sorry I didn't believe in You
when I should have.

I'm sorry that I'll die
before letting you know how much
you've changed me.
I've grown up because of you
when I didn't want to,
traces of innocence melt away
in these two hands, and how sorry
I am to have lost you.

I'm sorry that five months wasn't enough
to mend me, I'm afraid that
no amount of time will
ease the scars of February.

I'm sorry soul, for hurting you
when I lied. Because it certainly wasn't
physical pain.

I'm sorry that as I stood at
the hangman's noose, I remembered
those on death row don't merit
a second chance.
But you gave me a one.

For that, I am not sorry.