The flood waters recede
Leaving mud coating the streets
Thick and cloying
Full of litter and broken branches
Debris covers the ground
The storm has passed
But the trees have fallen now
Their roots exposed and searching for ground
Dying
You can’t go back to before the storm
And in the aftermath
Will you still love me?
I lost my lover in the night
The moonlight showed me our empty bed
Through the woods I chased her
Her red scarf a farewell present, knotted to a tree
I lost my child in the morning
His duvet thrown back, bed empty
Teddy, one paw raised, waving goodbye
I lost my mother in the dusk
The TV ran itself into white noise
In the static, her voice wished me well
I lost myself at midnight
The mirror is empty now
A photo in a gild frame smiles in parting
They’ve called down the stars tonight
And hung them in the folds of the tent
To light up the upcoming show
The skies know this is a special occasion
And stretch out the evening for hours
So the heavens can bend down to watch
The sky neglects her duty:
Night fails to fall tonight
And the starry tent is full of dancing
The trees are bent double, wind clawing leaves from their arms
Flecks of gold dancing through your vision
Whirling and swirling in eddies and drifts
The hedgerows are rich with colour; gold and orange, red and green, brown and yellow
Leaves like confetti at a wedding, clogging the pathways, choking the drains
So that every passing stormcloud turns roads to rivers
YOUR BODY IS EVERYTHING
your sharpest attitude, smoothest aptitude, soaring altitude
your piece of art, piece de resistance
Your rebellion, self-expression
Temple of your own religion
The way your hips move when you walk
lips moving over teeth as you talk
You’re turning heads, girl, but they ain’t looking at your body
YOUR BODY IS NOTHING
It’s a flimsy plastic bag carrying the greater prize
YOUR SOUL IS EVERYTHING
your soul is your sharp attitude
Your soaring altitude
Your aptitude for this funny thing called life
It’s your drive, jive, reasons to be alive
As many and as lovely as stars in the sky
Your dance, your walk, your words
You’re turning heads, girl
We take our meal outside to sit on the parched grass to eat
The same meal; her with a fork, me with chopsticks
The air is warm, sky a brilliant blue despite the late hour
Empty bowls are pushed aside
I lie back on the yellow grass, closing my eyes
Someone, probably a couple of houses down, is having a barbeque
And the smell of meat roasting wafts over
The airplanes rumble overhead and for a glorious moment
Everything is peace
Then a piece of grass is thrown at me
A second and then a third follow
I sit up, and the next hits me in the face
The next piece of grass isn’t immediately chucked at me;
She sits there for a moment, weaving
And then holds out a ring
As it slides onto my finger I wish
That love was really this simple.
I don’t want the light to find me when I’m on my knees
My broken pieces exposed for all to see
Let me pull myself together first, struggle to my feet,
So I can step into the light with no trace of defeat
But I can’t stand
I try, and I collapse again
I lurch up and crumble down
With no support and no strength left in me
It’s impossible alone
And that’s the problem
Because if I don’t let anyone see me on my knees, how can they ever help me up?
A metallic-sounding buzzer goes off
Black words flash on a yellow screen:
“Miss Ghayas to room G08”
A man stands, reaches out a hand
“Come along, Miss Ghayas,” he says formally
The girl is so small that her feel dangle off the chair
She hops down, takes her father’s hand
“Let’s go, Miss Ghayas,” he says
The tiny girl’s laugh rings like a bell
They were together in the dark; but the lights came on, and they fell apart
(some things can’t survive being seen)
The grass wilts and yellows, turns to straw, but people go to the parks and lie under the sun anyway
Bare earth baked dry until it splinters
Above the tarmac the air shimmers like magic in the boiled afternoons
Windows are thrown open, curtains fluttering, and the streets echo with conversations and arguments and different kinds of music
The smell of next door’s dinner drifts into my bedroom, and my stomach rumbles
Her belongings start appearing:
A shampoo bottle in the shower,
An extra towel on the back of the door,
Food in the fridge
One more toothbrush
The kitchen is tidier;
The floor is swept
The cobwebs disappear
I come back home and there is someone waiting for me
There’s music playing
The smell of cooking
She asks if I’m hungry;
She made enough for two
“Do you want tea?” she yells while I’m working
In the late evenings I can hear her in the other room
Chatting away to her boyfriend
The silence that usually fills these rooms
Banished at last
At first glance you might be mistaken into thinking he was a man, with his moustache proudly perched on upper lip and his broad shoulders. But look at little closer, at the nervous eyes, at the twitching hands, the thinness of the jaw, and the eyes. Especially the eyes. He’s just a boy. He’s just pretending until these clothes fit him.
He calls me a “modern woman”
And I am not stupid enough to take this as a compliment.
What he means is this:
I do not fit his view of the traditional woman.
The traditional woman is demure;
She blushes prettily when complimented.
She submits to her husband.
She does not have strong opinions
And never disagrees with him.
She will let him take the lead
And she will follow wherever he goes.
She is a beautiful work of art
For the husband to admire the shape of
But she lacks personality. She lacks
Personhood.
Me? I am the modern woman.
When he is wrong, I tell him.
I disagree with him.
I tell him off.
He tells me he is a better driver because he is male. I tell him he is sexist.
I know that I am loud, headstrong, and unwavering in my beliefs.
I am rude. I break rules. I don’t understand boundaries.
He tells me there is something unattractive about women like me
And on some days, I believe him.
I worry that I am corrosive, aggressive, intense.
I feel the weight of this body:
Broad shoulders. Thick thighs. The fat lying across my hips.
This body jiggles.
It does not fit nicely in dresses.
Some days I leave the house
Only to retreat because my body tells me I am too ugly to go outside.
Some days I hate myself.
Some days I think that I am too strong
And that no man will ever love me
Without wanting me to change.
But there are heroines who are like me
There are women who give their opinions freely
Who stand up for themselves
Who do not submit to this idea of traditional.
There are women who challenge other
With their words, their actions, or their fists
They are women who do not choose tradition
But choose passion, career, excitement, adversity – the harder path.
These women can be found in books and on screens
In poems and on the city streets
In rural villages and in hospitals
These women have existed throughout history
And their endings were usually written for them.
So yes, my body jiggles.
It is imperfect and a bit broken
It causes me pain
I try to love it like a Christmas present given by an obscure not-quite-relative
That I will hide beneath the bed for years
Before letting out into the light of day.
My thighs are large
But they are also strong
When I’m running I don’t feel so ashamed of my body
Because I feel powerful.
He says he wants a woman who will submit to him.
I say I want a man who is my equal.
If I am strong, let a strong man love me
Let him know I am a modern woman.
Definition: the volume of air taken in with each breath.
My ribs move out, my chest expands
The water rushes in
This is the tide of my breath
Waves crashing up the beach and sweeping back
The rattle of pebbles in the current
This is the tide of my death
Stranded in that bed, I dream of beaches
When beeping machines drown everything out
I meditate on sand and summer and you
And just as the tide is moved by the moon
So you orbit my bed and fret
We don’t kiss
My lungs expand, the water rushes in
These pebbles scrape the seabed.
On an aside,
Do you remember the story of the King who tried
To hold back the tide?
He died.
And my darling, I lied.
I won’t survive.
A young child waits alone in the dark
His duvet pulled up to his chin
He waits for his goodnight kiss
But his mother forgot about him.
He can hear her voice, drifting upstairs
She giggles, gossips, drinks tea
And while her son waits alone in the dark
She laughs, obliviously
While upstairs her son is alone in the dark
Thinking, “She doesn’t love me.”
The Mind of Tanitha 