Wanderer
I look around trying hard to find the familiar in every stranger’s face I meet,
They are not here.
Somewhere deep in my brain they seem buried.
All I can is pray for their resurrection,
The memories of a place whose direction I have grown to forget.
It does not come from cheap hotels stays and liquor,
Time spent with people I would rather not know,
Or keeping lonely men temporarily happy with the body I can hardly recognize.
I see it in memories of being on my mother’s back, hearing her voice and her footsteps on the gravel,
In the gentleness of her voice so reassuring
I close my eyes and can only see myself on the foot of the chair she’s seated on
She reads for me…
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
These words I say with clenched teeth and clenched jaws,
Hoping for a miracle,
Ignoring the obvious transitory nature of life,
Which I am terribly seeking in places where darkness resides.
Somewhere in between solitude and pain
I count,3,2,1, I open my eyes and see not
The unclaimed memories of tomorrow,
Whispering in the un-walked corridor that leads to the laughter of summer we never experienced
the door remains unopened
Still I call back and the echo of my silence remains unheard.
on this immobile sidewalks , i stand again
I swear this is the last time I will ever leave to try and find myself again.
Two kids with fistfuls of jelly tots climb into the taxi
Curious enthusiasm glitter in their round eyes.
Like all the people, un-communicated understanding of their destination imprinted on their minds.
not on mine.
Another hour passes and my well curated “I am waiting for someone to pick me up” response to whether I am boarding is unconvincing
So I get in…
The air is like winter nuclear…
Thick with paraffin smog and cooked mutton.
Steep with chatter of women scolding their children to sit still
Something ancient in the way they speak.
I cocoon my face in my hands, I can’t breathe,
My throat ablaze with tears I have held longer than I remember to exhale…
I am exhausted.
