the one you love sits across from you at
breakfast maybe it’s just a sir or your
father or the one who holds you closer
than any other person between you is the
coffee or your cell phone or the
Atlantic Ocean or a pillow covered in
your mother’s tears or your self-esteem
again you just calm down you feel the
truth claw its way out of your throat
pass the butter you say used to the part
where everyone asks how you are and you
say ok and they believe it
if survivor’s guilt makes you apologetic
I talk a lot sorry I think too fast
sorry I count the exits in a room as
quickly as I count the exits in a
conversation sorry you try to control it
but that morning anxiety ties your lover
to the bed and says let’s play she
brings all her friends a trembling legs
the sweaty palms the indoor voice your
relationship you’ve only officially been
awake for 15 minutes and you’ve already
imagined every scenario of things that
could go wrong on this day there are
still 20 minutes left until your alarm
rings so you imagine everything that
will go wrong tomorrow then it rings
when he smiles the war packs her things
and says I’m leaving the feeling is an
inches from your face the walls stop
closing in and you’re back in Paris
under that starless sky you think about
kissing him
but the Imam walked in dangling
salvation from the tip of his prayer
beads saying things about how God speaks
softly and carries a big stick as if a
sermon borne phallic enough already
then your mom brings eternal damnation
into the picture and temperature rises
you’re not sure if its eyes if it’s if
you’re not sure if it’s his eyes or hell
heaven hell and adolescent hormones are
picking you apart in that order you feel
like a lie in that red dress but you
kiss him anyway and for a moment you can
breathe without a ticking time bomb
on your oxygen tank you recognize the
irony of a Muslim with a bomb metaphor
and pray to God the CIA can’t hear your
thoughts the cities the city falls away
around you the night air feels like a
summer harvest the CIA the Imam and your
mother convene in the corner the Bible
starts looking at you funny you kiss him
again and think you kiss them again and
think this must be how the Atlantic
feels when she tastes the Pacific on a
breath of wind but fear climbs down on
your throat so he was at first too suing
and too
quickly you listen anyway I found that
thing you read somewhere about how those
who love first are the first to go when
he looks at you forget everything spend
the next eternity making up for not
saying at first carry him the way the
Nile carries Lake Victoria hold him the
way a traveler hang on to the Northstar
love him the way the Dead Sea loves
Mount Everest shall be enveloped the
peaks and rows of this planet but as
best pasting into your worst your worst
days into his best and make home of this
every grain every drop of water every
body and makes you think of him and
you’re both from the desert so you can’t
help but think you spent your entire
life at his mercy when he leaves you it
doesn’t stop raining you’re left
drenched in the desert something you
prayed for but with nothing to save the
water you start to wonder if the
continents ever call for each other on
the cold nights or a Venus ever reaches
for Saturn or if the moon ever wants to
come home I tried to forget you sunk all
your memories in the river but the waves
keep tossing them back I want to believe
that I’ll see you again but we don’t
live long where I’m from Venus is
weeping in my arms the hardest part
about watching you leave is that you can
and xiety ties you to the bed the war
unpacked our things
—
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—
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—
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