You are a body that needed a home / now you are ruins and home is wound

Why I left when I did and could not say goodbye:

The prison cell of memory / the decade of letters to the boy in Brooklyn/ the bleached bones / the runway of nightmare / the parched stillness echoed in hospital rooms / the clenched fists / the shivering night sky / the shattered glass in balconies on three continents / the silence/ the pity/ the rage in bones / the “I feel butchered / like someone / cut and cut and cut / all the humanity/ left nothing but rage”

The mother outside morgue paralyzed by grief / cries “I am not sorry for the martyr in you” / the revisionist history / the it did not happen / the they said it was different / so it was different / no one ever asked how or why / the sea of tents / the echo of lifeless / the limelight vertigo/ the blood soaked streets / the it did not happen / the revisionist history / my children will one day ask about

You are a body that needed a home/ now you are ruins and home is wound

The stillness of the midnight sky / before tear gas climbs down staircase of metro station the bodies start falling like thunder/ like applause / like paralyzed mind/ waiting to be jolted by lightning

The I do not sleep / the I wake for memory / the close my eyes and all I hear is gunfire / tilt head back and exhale for quiet / instead I am falling / falling / falling / into the broken teeth of this city / with blood-crusted fingernails / bruised knuckles/ and burnt bodies sketched with charcoal on the back of my eyelids/ the letter this week is about losing myself

You are a body that needed a home / now you are ruins and home is wound

The arms wrapped around blanket during October sunrise / no map / no mercy / no melody / only cloud as corpse to guide the way / the unwritten letters

The months go by/ the I do not recognize myself/ overdose on pills /as shrapnel fills throat/ asleep with the intimacy of loss / resting on my side table/ with yesterday’s coffee grains / the trying to remember to forget / and always forgetting to not remember / the I do not write to him for 64 days

The count to five and breathe / the 1-2-3-4-5 exhale / close my eyes and /all I see is ornament of burial shroud / sunset painted with massacred veins / city of lanterns with purple haze / marketplace of sorrow/ glass shards meet concrete / another balcony / the unkempt hair / the midnight walks / the hollowed out / clawed out / the rotting and ripe presence / of batons and blockades / and another and another and another / letter from prison cell / the are you okay? / the are you happy?/ the before I sleep I am still talking to your silhouette on walls

You are a body that needed a home / now you are ruins and home is wound

Suez is burning / Sinai is burning / Port Said is burning / Maspero is burning / Ittahadeya is burning / Tahrir is burning / my world is burning and all I can do is write / to the boy in Brooklyn / who taught me how to be / the hollow frame of a body / in spite of the flames

The aftermath/ the mayhem of survival/ the mayhem of empty/ the mayhem of the broken hymn / of the hundredth goodbye

The I left when I did / nothing familiar / about myself / left / I left the letters behind / box full / overflowing / of handmade paper / flowers pressed between the map to the morgue and memory overflowing of / nothing but hollow

You are a body that needed a home / now you are ruins and home is wound

The I still write to him / the I still write to him / not of hollow / not of loss / not of adventure / or defeat / or love / but of finding a way out / of lifeless and love in spite of loss / of starting over / of lifeless and love in spite of loss / of leaving / of lifeless and love in spite of loss

You are a body that needed a home / now you are ruins and home is wound
You are a body that needed a home / now you are ruins and home is wound

The you can walk away / the you can always say enough / the you can always say today / I will watch the world burn / from another balcony

The post Homes of Loss (spoken-word poetry by Maheen Hyder) appeared first on The Postcolonialist.