Sometimes I'm nostalgic
for frost flowers and a hot water bottle
old winter fantasies

to pictures of the parvis
our house full of aunties
the garden full of apples

a basket full of nuts
always something to celebrate
then, but for now

that is much too far away
now it is empty
behind the pictures

I could take with me
Missing the barren land
the wonder of the gardens

missing the unpacked smells
of the market and the passion
missing the songs of my youth

wiped and overwritten
I lead a new life
in my emigrated hand

Cushioned in the cracks till the sliver meets eye,
I am a witness,
To the spider and the fly on the table,
Taking sip after sip of a heated debate over a purpose.

Eye twitching to the sides of the walls towards a painting,
Definition in the curves of the decay,
Still aesthetic from the lines to the dripping frame,
A figure crying with a smile at the dust and the webs,
Left by the painter.

We gander on at the ghosts of an empty room,
Before the creeks from the floor stopped existing,
Before the whites and the browns of the walls turned grey,
Where the fireplace whistles a fable,
Of a light it produced even brighter,
Than the beams cutting holes in the ceiling.

If not for the rain, I could've sworn I heard the songs of the tapping,
From the infants that stabbed at the windows,
Similar to the pitch of where the door used to be,
I used to scurry to the cleft of the kitchen,
To see the gods drink the sins of the passing week,
Where they would dance against the sides of the counter tops,
Before the moss conquered most of the tiles,
Before the corrosion ate away at the sink.

The rooms I used to venture to were worlds I thought never existed,
A land made of cotton and fabric,
Where the bodies would lie upon for hours,
Voices echoed from inside of a plastic box,
And showed a story of the lives within them,
I'd always watched till the frame within turned black,
I used to itch for the morrow and the after,
I used to crave for the revelation,

I still remember.

At the edge of a playground,
The swings sway empty.
Why can’t I reach them?
The seesaw stands still,
Why do I only watch?

The slide, as if waiting for someone,
Yet here I sit, staring at the emptiness.
Wasn’t this everything I wanted?
The things I used to cry for,
The reasons I pulled back the curtains
And looked out the window,
The silent prayers I whispered.

Then…
What happened today?