Q. How did you know you loved? (5m)
When we had ran all the streets to the end,
learnt these veins weren’t enough to contain
young blood. We could have traced these roads
to each other’s heart by heart. When every flat
was a hill and every sunrise we saw
was first and the last, I had known for sure.
He would never be as sufficient as We.
—
Q. How did you know he cheated? (15m)
I did not. All I ever had were children
tugging away at the hem of my shirt.
Life isn’t a metaphor. No tower, no
lightning, no stopped clocks. No –
he never did say anything: but he
addressed all his poetry to ‘You’.
When addressing Us was sin,
the unspoken word, taboo,
I knew then that we were shrinking:
the distance to his house, dates, even
the sex, shortens. When I wiped his nut
butter off and wished he could unfuck me
that night I swore I had saw him nod, twice.
—
Q. How did you feel about it? (5m)
I wanted to get lost. Lost from this city,
into the wild. Find a place where birds still sing
to each other. He could not lead me by the hand
any longer, so I was already halfway there.
—
Q. What about the darkness? (10m)
You get accustomed to it. When the
world tucked itself in I spent many hours
feeling it: the flaking bark, tiny insects,
muddy soil, crackling kindling. I dug
a hole and slept in it; letting the mud
embrace, smother me. I wanted to be
part of something greater than me again.
Then, I saw him: looking down, covering me
with the warm earth, with his caretaker’s hands.
That was something I would not have minded;
that was the moment where God deletes
the trees and sets this little death aflame.
Darkness was but a temporary refuge –
the absence of light made space for me,
and nothing, nobody more.
—
Q. When did you start living again? (15m)
When the smoke blanketed my sleeping body –
I ran for it. Ran from this inferno threatening
to consume me, as I did with him. As if
running could bring me back to you.
People die when they are killed;
nothing can retract the dagger.
With this I learn there is
no right route, no connector, no
end line. I ran into this city, a city
with no name, no shadow, hence nowhere
I belonged. It was at this moment I saw you:
smiling on the hill, never-ending horizon behind you.
At that very moment, I swear, you had eclipsed the sun:
and so, like everything else, my life was open ended as well.
—-
Many answers. Hopefully can get at least 30/50 arh.
With (many) Apologies to Kendrick Loo.
Original Post Here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/singpowrimo/permalink/977219779059940/
ugly stage 