How many feet deep does pain dig

Into a body before it finds the ore

Of happiness to be distilled into a mouth?

 

Pose:

 

The sun becomes a neighbour to my room’s quietude,

I sit under her wings with my emptiness,

Unknotting the riddles in my chest

Before I crease my voice into poems—like this one,

Painting my fingers amethyste and my mind, the ember

of everything grief burnt alive.

 

In the streets:

 

There’s a never-ending presence

Of a voice—sordid enough to burn

A memory—yet, reassuring.

I traipse to hold on to it & the fossils of my 

Memories, but I do not know how.

 

Repose:

 

My body knows it doesn’t need too much peace, 

Just enough to dilute the aching salt under my skin &

Sprout me from the nothingness of how I sketch 

My dreams on water before watching them curl

Into ripples of silence.

 

I perform ablutions with my flustering faith

& in the end, I’m still seeking the differences

Between darkness, blindness & emptiness.