If you're the blanket then I'm the stitches,
If you're the needle then I'm the mittens,
If you're the water then I'm the kettle
And if you're the rash then I'm the nettle.

If I'm the icing on the cake
Then you're the blow, the burn, the break.
If I'm the claws of a neighbour's cat
Then you're the nose of each dead rat.
If I'm the clock on the microwave
Then you're the cancer and the grave
And if I'm a schemer's dossier
Then you're the board on which he plays.

If you're the hair pulled at hysterically
Then I'm the teacher steeped in austerity.
If you're the cuff that's come unrolled
Then I'm the base camp unpatrolled.
If you're the tea leaves left behind
Then I'm the fortune undivined
And if you're the reason I'm capricious
Then I'm the reason you're pernicious.

If I'm the strap, love, you're the sandal,
And if I'm the drugs then you're the scandal.
If you're goodbye, love, I'm the foyer,
And if I am "je" then you're "tutoyer".

be tender of words
and
tender of hearts,

be strong, be kind,
forgive us, them,
forgive them, us,
yourself as well,
for ours are walls
needy for overcoming,
and yours are too oft
too high

lives of tasks and taskmasters,
these oft self-appointed,
responsibilities - rocket-******
upon shoulders of mortal materials
uneven for and unintended
for the job
of carrying the world...

and yet,
we do
carry you, carry the world,
imperfect and scourged,

those self-righteous,
beheaders be wary,
I will not atone for you,
I will speak no tenders for you,
on this day of forgiveness,
there is none

“Woman does not emerge from man’s ribs. Not ever. It’s he who emerges from her womb.” Nizar Qabbani.

1. In the beginning
God asked himself a question and only made half the answer.
The Bible says
That when the Lord realised the world needed a woman
He searched through man, took a rib, and made her.

2. Eve, all apple and velvet.
I know you didn’t come kicking and screaming.
You, grafted onto man like a prize fruit
then cooked up like a red wine sauce all acid and hiss.
After the Bible took away the one thing it thought you were good for in the first place
it had you hold hands with the devil,
all flirtation and fashion,
made you sound like your body was empty of anything else.

Eve,
Mother of mothers.
Carved yourself from the rubble the same way David pulled himself from the stone.
Don’t tell me a woman is ever a safe place to rest.
Don’t think Eve ever let herself be an after thought.

3. On the third day
before the flood and the fire and the rubble,
God made himself a garden and called it Eden.
Or Eve.
Or something.
He stopped, closed his eyes and finally smiled because at last he had made something holier than himself.
He tried every fruit, spat the seeds like broken teeth.
Over the next few nights Eve kissed her life into Adam’s ribs,
told him it was
all good.
When The Lord finally moulded Adam from the clay of the garden, the wind whispered and knew.

4. People say that a great woman is just like a fine wine - full bodied and getting better with age.
Tell that to your mother.
Tell that to every woman who has ever fought for a cause.
A woman’s blood is worth so much more than communion but men just love a commodity.

5. I close my eyes and I am standing in a garden.
Her name is Eve:
her hands are ripe fruit;
head a forest fire;
body sinking under the weight of a great flood.
I say: “Eve how do I think myself into forest?
Will you show me how to become forest fire? All skin and bones and burning map.
You perfect absolute.”

6. So I turn back. Pull her name from my ribs like I was the first and I came from her.
And then my hands, gentle gravediggers.
And later I looked up and there was nothing except earth and light and earth and light and her
and it was over again.
So I sat down. Took a breath - the first real breath, hands shaking like the corners of pages.

7. I looked for the first time and I could see for miles.
I could see for miles.

An ever-growing list of things that I can't fix
a set of scribbles on a blank lined page
a lifetime of regretful (in)decisions
a stack of unstamped postcards that I swear I meant to send
my clinginess, my neediness
a drawer full of unused paper clips
two eyes that work too well to see what lies beneath the skin
a mouth that I may never learn to tame
two ears that someday soon will cease to hear
a cluttered, clumsy, cumbersome soul
two hands with scars and calloused fingertips
a mind that only ever thinks of you
two legs that don't know where the hell to go
and
a heart that's only satisfied when beating next to yours...

And this is all I have to give to you.

I miss having someone with whom I can share my deepest feelings, my hurts, my desires. I need to relieve this aching chest, this chest that tightens up without my noticing, until I begin to gasp. I need to cry; I need someone who knows my inside, and not my out. Its tough not being known—it is a situation one feels no need to prepare for, until it occurs. I desperately want to invite someone in—though only someone that knocks first, someone that wants to be here. And I myself want to be welcomed into another, to understand and feel for someone else, as they feel for me. Here in this place, how do I make my knock heard? My knock is faint, and unfamiliar. I shall keep knocking nonetheless. And pray a door will be opened.