Pour A Little Salt

*

They say that moments before you die Your life flashes before your eyes

I saw you Your smile, your favorite red shirt Your body spray, your underwear Your bedroom TV, which only had 2 channels The ashes of your father, you kept wearing on your lips

My hands on your body The things that bothered me Your bloodshot eyes when you locked me in your mouth

Your mother Decoding me with silent, stolen looks Me wondering why you secretly hated her Even though your lips were stitched together Your childhood photos and all that died in it

Drunken nights The fact that we never really fought It bothered me so much That you would always agree to each of my razor words

How lonely I was even when You wrapped me in you, in futures, in “only yous” I’m not used to this I don’t like it

How I left everything In that park, in the taxi It hurt me too I don’t know why

You leave me messages “Why? Why? Why?” I ignored you for a year She is not me, I am not her Anymore, at least

She’s a ghost An idea A character

My life with you flashed before my eyes That’s when I knew you and I are finally over Thank God, thank God I needed that

I needed to resurrect from the ashes that were us I’m ready now

I’m always at the edge. The edge of happiness, of finally figuring it all out, only to be struck by lightning,to be steered into another direction.

I always meet the edges, of coffee tables against my toes, of words from mouths of people who would never look twice at me when I think twice about them.

But it’s the edge that pumps the blood up into my lungs, my airways forcing me to work for the oxygen that I deserve to breathe.

Maybe I’ll always be at the edge, but at least I don’t step back and settle under the shade.

Why do I have to have a perfect body?

Why can't I morph into something

imperceptible?

Slowly, gradually, like melting candle

Burning by the window

That I left there for my lover.

Weeping wax on untouched skin,

Taking shape in any natural way;

With breathless devotion,

As long as it stings.

I don't have to have a perfect body

If under warm touch, it sings,

Coming home to a half-lit room

The world will feel it burn,

I swear.

Haven't said a word to me in two months, haven't felt the way I'm feeling.

Been a while, how are you? Thought I lost your grip last season?

In my commute, in my head, you hum, my blackbird, prisoned.

Hey, sadness. My familiar, always plant your seeds in the garden.

Thorny roses, white carnations, forget-me-not, sun-sleeping flowers.

Love sometimes materializes in unlikely places,

Like wayward weeds between concrete cracks,

Like foreign coins on local streets.

I find myself looking at my feet while I walk,

my soul humming a sombre note.

There is no displaced weed there, no strange little coin.