Saturday, May 10, 2003

Your face was turned to the window
Sitting in the windowsill
Shoulders turned inward, shoulders now
So much thinner from the swimmer ones I knew.
And I desperately clutch my own shaking fingers and try to get a grip
on myself before I can look at you.
Words? Words....I'm sorry? You- she- deserve better than that.
So Ï hold your hand in a clutch that is returned
with the same intensity,
My fingers close around yours, so thin,
Birdlike.
Your eyes are empty
As you tell me how it's hard at night
Because nobody's there any more,
How you keep thinking that she's just in the hospital,
Will come home soon.
Masooma called, her mother died too and she said it would get worse-
Oh God, oh God, what can I do?
Me, who has her mother
And you, who will have to see the empty bed across your room
Every single day.
Me, who can go home and cry- and go then go to a theatre festival
And you, whose insides have turned into ice.
Parents are supposed to die when they're old and gray
Not on your twentieth birthday
Not when they're only 51
Not when they don't even have the strength to say goodbye
I wish I could do something to take away the hurt
The grief that plays in every movement
The bleakness of your gaze
Anything to make it better
But all I can do is hold your hand
Listen, and keep the tears back.

And life goes on
Music, laughter, conversation
Food, rain, flowers.
It's a blur, it's a blur
Hazy in this onslaught
I drift, trying to cope
Funny, me trying to cope-
I still have Amma, I still do. You don't.

It's the lilt of a dirge
That is filtering my days.

Mina at 5:28 PM

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