SABLE
You step into this city &
Everything tells you they know
Of dying, of burning. They paint
You war-red, paint a wedding dress
Black, with a cascade of embers.
Here, we’re all ghost cosplaying
As humans—
Waiting to be untethered from
Our bodies by the next gunshots.
Every day, we’re promised
Armistice, by the guns empurpling
Our evenings. Which is why I bear
A scar above my thigh for when this
City pulled me back, so I know
Of my amateurish art of escapism.
Now, we all drown into dreams
Of living things, to escape this city,
To watch the fire dancing on the
Mountains of the nation below.
SANS SABLE
And now, the bullets have granted our
Bodies armistice, but to what end?
The grounds are now impregnated
With the weight of a city, and they
Do not groan. Ashes of ruins now
Taint the wind, and the relics of what
Grief leaves behind permeates
The morning adhan—including
Memories of fire, gunshots, blood
& exit wounds. Today, I traverse
A street and I’m not the next meal
Of bullets, except that something
Is marathoning inside me, meaning,
My body is a burning house
Of broken records. Everything
Left in our mouths from these wa(te)rs
Are the sordid aftertaste of gloom, &
The drowning that accompanies the
Heaviness of silence. Today, we close
Our eyes and we’re not spooked by
Burning mountains, but the memories
Of what they burnt. Today,
The oneirocritic translates a dream,
And it does not end in chaos.