11

.

 

These are the sorts of things we must never speak about:

-the way you make me feel

-the way you make me feel

-the way you make me feel

-the way you make me feel

 

So what is it we can speak of if we can’t even write about it?

 

12.

It was you all along

Standing at the shore — willing me, willing me

 

I getting ready to cross the street at Broadway and MacDonald

& I dissolve into a puddle of water reflecting the amber light

Stop

Traffic above me, traffic all around

Horns everywhere and nowhere at all

 

You said you were thinking of me at the edge of the world

How long did you hold on to the water in your palm?

 

13.

O, to be a single sheet of paper beneath your writing hand

A pen in this digital age

A pen hovers over me

Write

Mark me

Write all, all over me

 

14.

The romance has settled and the curator of travellers have classified us:

Traders, explorers, discoverers, exiles, migrants, invaders, musicians

colonizers, lovers, takers, thinkers, investors, artists, mongrel,

slavers, hoarders of disease, artists, mongrels, green eyed slaves,

sailors, translator, immigrants, refugees, missionaries, adventurers,

thinkers

 

We stopped returning when home disappeared in a foggy past

Bury me here

I can no longer hear the music from my home

 

15.

 

Tell me a story, the woman said, so I can make sense of my new self

Mold these bits into a woman

 

I can’t do that, the man said

You are already all woman

 

Here, lie down, sleep

Here, eat

Here let me bathe you

Here let me do your hair

Here, let me love you back

 

Now the room is full of soft creatures

— not speaking  but humming like the fridge

Ribbons, silk and lace in pastel

that’s what will distract him now

 

Why is this betrayal that he won’t look at you?

Why is this betrayal that your place at his feet is no longer enough?

Why must you grovel ?

What does it mean to not be seen?

What does it mean to know that you are not seen?

What does it mean to be invisible?