Bushra Farooqui

I am deflating.

Becoming child, becoming woman, changing my skin into liquid, and creating vapors and melting into the sun.

Dancing, smiling, I cannot see your face, so I walk with a finger on my pulse.

I turn my back, I swear you lingered there, for just a breath.

I breathe, you breathe.

I know it.

You know it, too.

Inside my head, there is the moon, and there is you, dissapearing into light and ghost, part illusion, part promise.

You, you, are not human, not kind, or cruel; you are unaware.

Don´t.

Don´t hiss these lullabies inside my ear.

Instead, pour water, and I´ll take them from your fingers tips gladly.

No no, I am under and you are far too above, far too quiet, too meticulous inside your space of ice and perfection.

I see you through a telescope and can´t find any stars.

And my umbrella is broken, and it´s pouring, and I thought you touched my chin, but I moved away thinking of my offenses to you.

Your smile is sewed on your face and I can see those incisions that show all the gaps in your skin that extend to mine.

I´ll play with you, don´t worry; I´ll make a boat inside my head, and you can set sail when I blink.

Away from you, I am normal, faceless and easily mistaken for someone else.

Near you, I become someone outside of me, unresolved thoughts, and someone nobody knows, an abberation.

Don´t pretend to tend to my wounds after you´ve inflicted them; I´ll suckle my own blood.

Your silhouette bleeds into darkness, becoming nothing, just as I am nothing to you.

You didn´t even look back.

Give me something thicker than the blood that joins my face and your hands.

I don´t want your damned art, worthless wit, and empty science that has neither eyes nor soul to discern me.

I´ve stopped looking for you behind newspapers, under frowning lines, and inside my incubated fears.

Pack your bags, vacate me; I would rather live someone else´s life than live mine with the hope of you.

Quickly, make up your mind, I can´t play any longer, I can´t allow you inside my head to draw circles.

Don´t silence my words. I am sick of bruising my desires for you.

What´s this? Don´t come any closer, I am already gone, you can´t reach me.

I won´t give you a thing, I swear.

Don´t.

Please, don´t.

Damn you.

So close, you brush a whisper and fall asleep inside my ear.

You didn´t listen to me.

Instead, you spoke the most dirty, dirty words.

I wanted to believe that your unclean mouth is a fig with a heart inside.

In sleep, your fingers move across my throat writing your name, binding me to you like a knife to a hand.

I close myself.

Sunshine on my bed, I see you, like bulbs fusing in and out.

You propel yourself over me, like you have so many times before, and like never before.

Could this stranger be you?

Now, you´ve become someone else, too ill inside, nimble fingers grazing my hair, touching but not touching, hovering between indeicison and desire.

Your head falls--and I feel you swallow, humbled by the ache--to kiss me.

I flee.

One day, I´ll forgive you, I promise.

I wanted to give you everything.