I'm grieving the absence of something I never had.
Whose presence I felt nip at my fingertips.
Like a playful cat
Or a roaring fire
Sometimes I closed my eyes and imagined for a moment
Behind my eyelids flashed the headlights of the future I longed for
It only jarred me more when I opened them to stare at my bedroom ceiling
And it never felt good
In some ways I am lucky
Religion has taught me that I have everything worth having
And someday, I'll have all I've ever wanted
It just won't be here
And it will not be with you
Sometimes I feel it more than ever
And I marvel at my inability to describe it
But I shall try just the same
It's not an emptiness, nor is it a weight
It isn't suffocating or painful
I think, It's almost like a box
that you keep filling with items
and no matter what you put into it you have the feeling that it's horribly wrong
and doesn't belong there
so you take it all out
and start again
And you think to yourself:
If I find the right object, this feeling will go away.
And it is unpleasant, so you really do want it gone
But the moment you find something, and you feel like
This is it, this is what will fit
You place it gently down
And pull it back up.
I understand now the concept of wanting.
But I also understand, that it is like candle wax
longing for the lit match
That I am sheer silk craving the heavy embroidery needle
I know it will snag me
I know I will melt.
We aren't wrong for wanting
We came from soil and clay and from everything we yet do not know
We came from a place the world doesn't believe in
And I sometimes wonder, if the tugging at my heart I feel
That makes me think I long for beauty, money, clothes
Is simply thread tangled up
and at the end, is just a longing to go back to where I came from.
Aisha. B