(i)
Stacks of glaring paper, waiting for the
Blood,
And beneath layer upon layer of dust
A beating, stirring heart,
Waiting for the
Flood—
And so I try:
A suffocator;
A crimson-kissed mirror:
Purple gives the impression of
Cold.
A girl;
A blue-eyed morning:
There are almost-smiles in this
Almost-darkness;
An almost-sadness
In this almost-joy.
Beneath my ribcage, it prowls:
A phantom, a lioness
A ticking time bomb.
Beneath my binder of untruths, it lingers:
A secret, a defiance, a truth clean-cut
Or that feral, unreachable thing
My smile
Like the Turks on my television screen
A dead city;
A story of midnight veils and hips like a pendulum:
There are olive branches
In the breathing rubble.
They breathe, they breathe,
My sisters in a home I will never
Know.
Thank God they breathe.
(ii)
A pretty tune;
A history older than my bones;
Let me decode this
For you:
I am the suffocator,
My cousin kisses my cupboard-mirrors,
The walls of my school are
A cracked purple.
I am in love
With my favourite daydream,
There are sorrows in my joys,
A reluctant ghost, afraid of the sun.
My country, it is breathing rubble.
Was it war that wrecked this home?
Tell me, father—is it the blue flag, is it the
Red-green-I-forgot-the-colours flag?
Forgive me, father—I think I might have
Forgotten the
Colours.
But literature is not meant
For decoding.
Tut, tut, the cynics will
Say.
There are far too many
Words in this poem.
a/n: IS THIS ACTUALLY A PROPERLY CAPITALIZED AND PUNCTUATED POEM
