hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay

That interim between dreams and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
When slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

Your scattered thoughts betray reality
and you
question everything - now waking
Smiling chief, chirping loud
Your body gathered and prepared
under torchlight in dusty tents
Ingesting iboga and that old familiar numbness overpowers
You've been here for a life now, looking back on your life now
hatasha hullah - dey
vey, okay, huttah, ulay

Witch doctor, tribal medicine, fanning smoke from a wild fire
flashing imagery akin to memories of when life was decadent
you remember the taste of stray rain drops on your upper lip on muggy British summer days
and waking on a beach, bloodied as the sand at your feet is the next recollection, how powerful
the act of reflection, as you recall the mirrors of the sea and your torn body weakened and inept
The gathered village chant in unison and splinter groups fall off beat only to rejoin intermittently

Remember the Burmese boy far from home on the Gabon shoreline
and he informs you of your own death,
and asks you why do you breathe still?

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey

On some beaten path lost in Angola you carried two packs, food for the world
but you fell starving and spluttered on the rock that looked like your home
Rebels run wild in jeeps black as night, your supplies strewn on rubble grounds
- hatasha hullah - dey
Taken in a flurry, twittering birds in far off trees betray your trust and fly away
in the opposite direction, and the juggernaut jeep catches air over uneven tracks
You were scared and crying under blindfolded eyes and captors jeered, captivated
- parablah nuh parrah
An orchestrated mass of military garbed children with rifles gather you abruptly
when the car stopped with a rumble
And tied to rusted rigs you're gagged and stripped, bloodied your face now
as they beat you and laugh
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
Congolese giant man, sword in hand and grimacing through bared teeth
Making bold gestures and speaking some inscrutable language
You cannot answer and fear is now in control, you shiver in the ghastly draft
On failure to answer you must be beaten, your back is lashed, repeatedly
- narralah, narrah, nutay
You remain silent but cry in disparity, after shrieks of horror finally escape your barren lips
Through stinging eyes you assess the surroundings after hours of torture when they retire
to their leather beds of shame and innocence faltered, try and remember how to live
- Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
Months must have passed, survive off insects and morning dew on the muddy floor
This African wasteland, time forgotten, child soldiers and lack of humanity is trivial
Always scheming, recollect the armament and through door-way shack trapped light
you see a clear path, and it is good
- ley hatasha hullah - dey
The pinnacle nightfall anticipated arrives, and your skinny wrists released now easily
(their faltering lack of knowledge and abundant braggadocio betray them)
AK laying in moonlight illumination, a sign of God perhaps, but experience proves otherwise
(How cruel the dreams you had of such a gift)
When they spot you leaving, the night lights up, wild crackle of gunfire, heart beats, tribal drums
(To massacre children, such proficiency, the dreams were mindful)
No lapse in concentration, you may ruminate on objective morality in due time
(Crawling through blood and bodies of children, so pure, cadavers tell lies)
The clearing ahead in giant trees, you run and don't look back, praying for no pursuit
(Another genocide committed by a white man, justified perhaps this once)
Weeks pass and you falter only to slurp rain water from Congolese sipping cups the leaves
(Blacking out somewhere in the Republic, or on a border or who cares, as you died long ago)
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
  ley hatasha hullah - dey

To awake from hallucinogen dreams, and cruel memories linger, it's painful you agree
Witch doctor still sings, lonesome now as the tribe apply ointments and silently pray
The fire still dances to some incredible song and your scars redacted, physical and other
How incredible the mind feeling fuzzy and that insane dream is just that - a dream
You black out again, a common occurrence but upon waking you're free, no tribe exists
With a sheepskin rucksack full of cassava, plantains and sugarcane and cocoa beans
Months pass and you make it to the North, when you leave Africa your body is new
and your mind is stable, no lingering cognizance or frightful thoughts of a forgotten ordeal

You arrive in Turkey, to partake in ***** with nimble girls
and I see you floundering on silken sheets,
My memories were fresh as the nymph on your lap
I write to you a note, and you turn alabaster, moon faced being
I was there always and saw every moment
Your ideals on morality are hazy at best, and to your behest I detest all that you stand for
Is your afterlife so pure, now that bodies litter the forest floor
and do you believe that I am not (a) God
and is this mere poetry, or an indictment of your folly and a warning to all whom engage
but do you not also see that every reaction was an action taken to your original action
and when all is said and done, do you no realise that from the day you were born
you were born a God and that God was born dead
and this is just that interim between expiration and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
when slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey

My head rested gently upon your shoulder's grace, Amidst the kitchen's warmth, in an intimate embrace.

You spoke of Abramović and Ulay's artful love affair, While I listened, entranced, with a silent prayer.

As the water simmered, poised to reach its peak, I absorbed each word, feigning understanding.

Your gestures, a symphony, as you traced the scene, Fingers dancing,  in a love unseen, an intimate dance just for me.

I pondered, as your touch lingered on mine,
Was our love akin to theirs, a complex design?

Filled with art and impediment, like a tangled thread, Were you showing me their image, with secrets unsaid?

Was it a subtle warning, a silent plea to flee? Or a gentle nudge towards what must be?

As you held me close, your grasp firm and tight, I wondered if our end was nearing, in the dimming light.

Your fingers, reluctant to stray from my skin, A silent testament to the love we'd once been.

Yet even as you checked the stove's steady flame, I sensed the hesitance, the unspoken claim.

For the music played softly, a melancholy tune, Unheard by my ears, yet felt in the room.

Unbeknownst to me, we began a slow dance, The tender steps of a breakup's advance.

So we swayed in silence, to the rhythm of a heart's lament, Each step a farewell, in love's testament.

In the dance of love's end, we found our song, Unraveling slowly, where once we belonged.

Is it?
Only a table between us?

The Abramovic ☐ Ulay kind of distance?

No more corners?
No more plates?
No more legs?

Only this weather-resistant table?
Is it?

It’s been six years but when I look back I feel like the emotions I felt are blurred into what I feel right now. Like watercolors on wet paper, they blend and blur and merge to create something else. People replaced him and feelings changed. I grew up. But before that I had to let myself be set on fire. I had to burn until there was nothing left of me. Until I was a pile of ashes and I was in a pit so deep and dark that I was sure I was going blind. I had an image in my head and it took over my thoughts and body and senses, so much so that when I was rejected I found that he was the one who’d set me on fire and walked away. I screamed and screamed and cried until I was dead.



And then I rose from the ashes and realized that all those days had passed, and I’d been telling myself that I could change someone I didn’t even really know. I thought that if you love someone it was enough to just tell them. I told myself that I was allowed to pretend like I could relate to all those sappy love songs and quotes and Facebook statuses. I thought I saw the signs and that was enough to fulfill the emotions that I believed I was feeling. But to him, the only real feelings were lust and infatuation. He’d decided that at the beginning, and maybe that was the problem. Because I saw the good and saw the good and then I was left in the cold with no light to help me home. There was no one to tell me how to understand that not everyone is going to like you as much as you like them. It’s never a good idea to agree to everything someone says, and it’s never a good idea to constantly be available. When you do that, people think they can come and go, and you’ll be fine with it. You don’t have the right to get angry or cause a fight because you just got what you asked for. And I don’t know what I expected-my imagination ran wild, I guess. 


I believed that he’d be there to meet me halfway, like Marina and Ulay, except in that walk, they just realized how their differences meant that they couldn’t be together. And in my story, we weren’t lovers. Friends? Maybe. Best friends? I don’t know. Can you become best friends with someone in a span of two or three months? What if you’ve never spent time with them in person? What if all you have is your imagination? Imagination of what he looked like as he typed responses to me, as he recorded little voice messages, as he chose what photos of his dog to send me and what information about himself to share with me. But your imagination can be wrong, and your imagination can merge with fantasy so much so that you forget the reality of it all. 


And there was so much reality I’d scooped out of this relationship, so many flaws and facts that I threw into the trash the way you’d throw ground coffee after hours brewing in the fridge-cold brew, deep and rich and bitter as ever. Wet and darker than they originally were, the coffee grounds are not reusable, and when I fell in love with him I decided that I would take the whole bag of reality and facts and throw it straight into the trash. I refused to even use them. They weren’t a part of the concoction that was our relationship. But then something happened. Something I had hoped wouldn’t happen. It made sense to blindly support him at the time. Pity and the need to understand pushed me to be ever so accepting of the one thing I hadn’t wanted him to say. Scarred by the past, and clearly unwilling to let it go, he wasn’t ready for a relationship. But I was. I wanted to grab his hands and dive headfirst into the water, and I didn’t care if we drowned. We’d hold each other while we drowned and that would be enough, and that thought alone made me fall even more. 


I could have been his anchor. 

I could’ve been his destiny. 

But we all know that’s not how the story ended.