A body was pinned to the ground; it was the body of a young woman. In the short time she gained consciousness, all of her senses were heightened; her vision was pitch black, but she could perceive everything around her like never before, for fear was instilled in her heart fluttering like a bird trying to escape for dear life, her lungs filled up rapidly and blood coursed her veins as her body was trying to prove it is alive; in the darkness she pictured the white flash of the thundering sky, the howling wind brushing against shaking tree bushes, every rain drop that fell on her cheeks, the cold water stream seeping through her red dress, the smell of nourished grass and fresh mud under her fingernails.

Though her heart never beat as fast, it almost stopped suddenly for one thing that made her petrified more than all that obscurity; a heavy warm presence. It was so warm brushing against her body, almost super fluid and mercurial in substance, gentle and bright radiating with brilliance and grace like a crystal. It spoke to her in mellow yet strange sound she did not understand, like a singing whale.

It was almost as if time has stopped and everything happened at the same time. Though terror paralyzed her ability, her instincts widened her eye sockets, her fingers cringed when she felt something burning making its way up through her entire body to her throat. It felt like voice cords being ripped apart by someone’s invisible hand in her mouth and burning her up and making her sweat feverishly. All while her perceptions were rewinding in her mind like someone hit the back of her head bursting up questions no one can afford to think about in her state; questions that made her feel extreme anger and horrifying confusion.

“Why do I feel relieved?”

“What is it that I cannot remember?”

It was a sudden agonizing pain no human can bear, which became slower and slower as time went by. It was a slow process of something shutting down. She slowly began to feel the numbness in her finger tips to her limbs to her chest. She couldn’t sense anything anymore; not the sharp wind or the piercing pebbles beneath. Everything that surrounded her felt like white rays reflecting hints of color and her mind became empty and clear, like a white board untouched and lacking. The only thought she knew was “I am an existence.”

She opened a pair of green eyes, not that they were there or were hers. It was as if she conjured up their existence and did the same with her body. She stood on pale bare feet and long slender legs. She felt light and graceful. She opened her palm and found a red-blood rose, which thorns were piercing through her flesh, and for the first time she felt what she wanted to feel; supreme happiness as she shed a tear and thought. “I must walk.” She did not know why or how, but it was the only thing that felt normal and familiar like a far-off memory in the back of her mind blurry and barely there.

She followed it with hope unknowingly conjuring up a place; A full moon, a dark forest welcoming a storm and small water stream, which on lay a young woman in her twenties, wearing an elegant yet simple red dress. She stared at her with no expression, her brown hair flowing up and down against a large stone, her striking blue eyes wide open and her skin taking a white bluish shade. She was drenched in blood, which flowed down the stream from her chest turning the water red. Next to her lay seven fresh red roses. They were carefully arranged in orderly fashion. Every petal was still intact and every root was delicately cut.

“Eve.” she said.

She did not know who this woman was, or how she came upon her name. All she wanted was to sit beside her lifeless fragile body and hold her hand. She wanted to grieve for her, but she remembered.



“I must keep walking.” She thought.

L’amour fluerit ici

I loved.

I loved against reason,

against wrath, against doubt, against betrayal,

against the sun, against the sky,

against the stars, against heavens,

against curse and bless.

I loved against eternity.

I loved through god, through reckoning,

through creation and rebellion.

My love..they killed my love.

Killed my love.

My love.

Your rib.

My heart in your ribs.

I was your rib.

Your heart

in my ribs.

My broken ribs.

Your broken ribs.

My soul,

my sophist soul,

my dancing soul

and bleeding feet

dance in worship;

prayers and pleas,

poems and pardons

at our grave.

At dust.

Your ashes and dust

seep through my hands,

seep through my soul

from water through my eyes,

from wounds through my skin,

from words through my lips,

from your ashes and dust;

from a grain of sand;

A cherry blossom tree..

your dreaming tree

blooming in my skin;

the amber in my bones;

the roots in my veins;

Oh my love.

My divine love.

L’amour fluerit ici;

Love blooms here.

Heaven is here.

Your soul is here;

Eternal.

Your soul eternal.

Grass is not greener on the other side;

grass is a holy tree;

an eternal tree;

a holy tree.

Oh holy,

my holy,

my holy angel,

my angel Gabriel;

stillness answers wrath,

faith answers doubt,

love answers betrayal,

and trees are eternity.

Oh holy tree;

my holy tree;

I pray to thee.

L’amour fluerit ici.

October 4th 2016

You know what day this is.

I was smiling quietly when you told me. I suppose I could say I feel happy & proud beyond measure, but that’s not quite all of it; more than that, in this big day, I’m fulfilled, four words that mean the world are realised & a dear promise of a lifetime on a torn page sees the light of day because of you.

Bliss.
You are my bliss.

They leave like leaves.
They leave from naked trees scattering their colours to the winds; in search, in death, in life, and the stronger the winds blow them away the more wary of their nakedness they become, but somehow the winds carry them back & the trees turn onto new leaves.

Distance encloses death.

When we lose a loved one, pieces of ourselves also pass away.

When we remember how grievous this loss feels like and weigh the scales, the torment of knowing them triumphs over the torment of losing them.

We acknowledge they were here and alive and we realize that there is no price to life.

Then the suffering someone can cause us becomes so small & insignificant, for our hearts are wide open; stretching and transforming, though the remaining holes are harrowing and never replaced, they are rather revered and remembered as future reminders; these scars become inscriptions on chest walls; eternal epitaphs on gravestones and spoken stories on bold bones solidifying our marrows with sorrows & solace.

We realize we are all fallible and fragile beings who only came to be & leave. That is when suffering does not torment us; only remind us to find a place of unbound, unbreakable and open objectivity; of serene surrender and crystal-clear acceptance.

This love becomes an act of letting go. A loving act larger than life.

Miriam completed her work promptly that day, cleaned up her workstation and stretched out her sore arms. She wanted to leave in time to take her photos from a studio close by her residence. She glanced out the window at the purple sky. She stared at the small photograph at her desk for a few seconds in silence.
Then she took her gold brown purse and crimson scarf and took off. When she stepped out of the building, her black boots sank into the ground. She cupped her red and cold small button nose with her small hands and looked up at the sky. It was snowing deep that day too, she pondered.

She passed by the studio and took her photos after a long chatter with the vendor, as the dark blue of the sky lurked above. When she reached her house with envelope in hand, at last, she did with her lips open.

“What’s the matter?” she said in bewilderment and little aggravation.
“Come and sit. I have something to tell you, dear.” her mother, Mona, said decisively.
Miriam went inside the house. She walked up the stairs to her room and closed the door. She put the brown envelope of her photos, carefully on her desk and sat on her chair and took a deep breath.

She opened her eyes at the sound of Mona knocking.
” Miriam, I need to talk to you. It is very important.” Mona said.
Miriam got up and opened the door, she followed after her mother downstairs into the living room and sat on a comfortable sofa by the inviting fireplace and looked at her mother.
They sat in silence for a minute.
“We got a call from…” Mona said in hesitation, with her lips wavering.
Now, Miriam’s eyes were focused on her mother’s face. On her brows. On the slight frown in her forehead. On the wrinkles that emerged and faded as she uttered every letter between her trembling lips.

“Joseph is dead. He’s dead, Miriam.” Mona said.

Miriam was not facing her mother anymore. She was gazing at the window, at the little white snowflakes swirling slowly with the wind.
“I see.” Miriam said.
“They said…he was killed in action. He was…” Mona said.
“There is no need to tell me anything more.” Mona said disrupting her.
All she did was stand up and walk to her room wordlessly. Tears streamed hot ardently down Mona’s cheeks, dripping from her bony jaw line.

Miriam locked the door. She threw herself in her bed staring at the brown envelope and reaching one arm to open it. She took out the photographs and took her time with each one.
She stared at each one with an indolent expression.
She frowned when she saw one photo of Joseph, striking a pose at an airport.
What a terrible sense of fashion. What was he thinking? She thought.
He was wearing an olive green knitted sweater with a red-nosed deer pattern, ill-fitting baggy jeans and a dark brown knitted scarf.
Then she beamed at the one dimple that appeared when he grinned.
She traced his features and expression; a long nose, a pointed chin and brown almond eyes. She traced them with her fingers. With her memory.

A tear dropped on Joseph. On his dark brown hair.

She shredded the photographs to pieces, slowly one by one and threw them very gently on the floor.

She clenched to her blanket tightly. She pressed her arms against her chest as hard as she could trying to hold something scorched in. She felt her ribs melting.
She kept gaping with her eyes wide-open, focused on the ceiling on the buzzing neon lights. After a while, her swollen eyes surrendered and her thick-lashed lids closed. Her breaths became deeper and her grip on the blanket loosened up a little.

It was long past midnight when she woke up. She got up and took off her clothes. She stared at the photographs on the floor with her mouth open. She opened the window and stood at the balcony at the break of dawn, unwary of her nakedness or the frosting cold. The heavens snowed generously as the sun rays glittered on the icy glass, on the white streets. She took the torn pieces of the photographs. She took a brief final glance at them, at a piece with almond eyes, then threw them off the balcony scattering them with the wind.

Take to the air away with the snow, just like it took Joseph away from me, Miriam thought.
She made a wish upon every snowflake to bear her grief and make her heart colder.

Her aurora voice, her sunlight soul;
like rays, she walks on different colours and breaks into million dancing pieces.

Her scent of light, her cherry blossom lips,
ivy in her veins, lilies on her skin
and a lotus blooming in her heart;
for a petal she drifts.

Luminous, she shines against all light.
Is she a friend, a lover or a stranger?
She only greets my soul by breathing.
She’ll release me, she’ll save me!