samhausenn

abyss

this is the abyss and what can possibly comfort it now? this gaping maw, broken open long ago who can go back in time to fix it back? i seek the answer all my life. lovable now, but what about back then, back then!!!! was i lovable then too? or is this love only something i grew worthy of?

this is the abyss of everything i will never be. not comforted nor saved nor reassured at the ages i needed most to be. i stand at the precipice, holding back everything in me that could never be a sacrifice enough to win me love. do you see me? do you come to me to clasp my hand? act quick, anchor me before i fall forward and let it tear me wide open, rendering me more myself than i have ever been: infinite.

#poetry

desert rations

i met an old, dying man on the desert road. i recognised his face, he was me from a long time ago.

“how could it be?” i exclaimed.

“i am you from back then,” he said, startling me, “when we had nothing but hope. do you remember me? i have been waiting to talk to you.”

“what do you have to tell me?” i asked, impatient as it began to rain.

“did things get better? i have to know.”

“they're getting better now,” i said but he cut me off.

“i waited for so long. if things got better, why did it take so long? i have been sitting in this desert for a decade, waiting for the rains to come. all the hope i had in me has shrivelled up like this dying body. i gave everything i had, i sacrificed the little love i still felt, and i gave it all just to hold on for one more day, one more year. so tell me again, why did it take so long and so much of me?”

“perhaps,” i suggested that there had been no better option or that it had been worth it. but such words were not worth even the air it took to breathe them nor to retell them.

gripping my wrist with his bony hand, he demanded a defense over and over and over again but i could give him none.

“i, i remember so little of it now. those times back then.” he said. “i wish i could've borrowed a little bit of joy from you now, a little bit of water, for back then, to nourish me. i wish i'd kept some of it for myself, but i never could, could i?”

rainwater pooled at my feet, around his body, the sand turning red wet under the sudden storm. he coughed weakly, mustering all his remaining strength. i kneeled down, to bear witness.

“i have to accept this,” he decided as water rose around him, the sands turning to tides, “and i will. this desert shaped me but i do not need to count my rations anymore by their water drops.”

and i watched him sink into the flood and disappear from my sights. beyond my sight, i hoped he would find his way to precious soil beneath the sands, and take root for a new life.

#oneshot

dandelion

my thoughts of you flower like dandelions i gently blow, sending the seeds flying through the air where they find an easy breeze to new soil where my love for you shall grow on stable ground

#poetry

yoga

i'm a corpse after gentle downward dogs and low lunges and butterflies and pigeons it was raining heavily where i started, a never-ending storm that promised a fiery end but now the sun has risen on my face i close my eyes, and tears come unexpectedly for the burning that i had feared for so long never came to pass i laid there in the sunlight feeling warm at last

#poetry

anaphylaxis

they say if you are allergic to aspirin, you might also be sensitive to ibuprofen, naproxen, others.

they don't tell you this in the 80s when my mother first experiences anaphylactic shock, or even now when i tell the doctor no aspirin because my mother is allergic.

he gives me ibuprofen instead.

i take it, still unaware – luckily, nothing happens.

but years later, my mother needs symptom relief and we shouldn't share old prescriptions but we do – and without reading the fine print: “do not take if allergic to aspirin or ibuprofen.” and “do not take if asthmatic.”

her nose keeps running and now her left eye swells into a golf ball and we are almost out of antihistamines. almost. she takes a weak one, then a stronger one. my father comments the doctors would scold us.

calmly, i search the internet for information. i message the pharmacist for a refill. i check the fastest route to the nearest A&E. i move upstairs in case my mother calls for me -

or if she stops breathing, that i can somehow hear that too.

#poetry

the end of all yearning

we were talking about how – at the first sign of love – life empties out and becomes an abyss in the shape of you – as if you were infinite. engulfed, i yearned. would i find in you my completion?

but i filled my days answering how i want to spend my time. my time, my life, my eternity if i had one. what would we give to be each of us, a god of time? and if we were gods, would i wish to spend my godhood with you?

and in this daydream, you became inessential. speechless with a mystery for a face. yearning alone solves no mysteries.

#poetry