The Last Cup of Water
On any given night
in the middle of my sleep
should I have awakened, parched,
and asked for water,
you would always bring it for me.
You held it by my mouth,
took a drink yourself,
placed it on the bed stand,
and then set your head
upon my shoulder.
I would squeeze you tight,
and stroke your hair…
You always went that extra mile
to show your love to me.
In case I had forgotten
to tell you before,
‘Thank You.’
But now I look down
and see an empty pillow
where I used to be…
Watching you hold it tight
and cry yourself to sleep, alone;
‘Don’t be Sad.’
My dry scalp
which you used to dust off frantically
every morning…
still stains the pillow covers.
Traces of me,
beneath your tears,
you now hold onto
with a tiger’s grasp
tight,
as my properties are
forgotten by your senses…
little by little
every night.
You would wait for me to exit
the bathroom in the morning
overtly grumpy,
yet secretly happy
to get in a little extra snooze time,
on my account.
I would come out and gently wake you, reminding you that you were late
for work.
And now every room
is all yours,
all the time.
If I were to visit you in steam
after a bath
don’t be frightened.
Breath me in,
drink me up,
and refresh yourself.
Keep me alive.
For I do not wish to ever leave you,
I just can’t.
I am so attached to ‘us,’
that I simply cannot move on.
Perhaps one day we shall wake up together again,
and ‘the last cup of water,’
shall survive us,
as a hypothetical story.
I miss you my love
and somewhere out here
in the cold,
far from your touch…
I am alone
and I am thirsty –
for you.
Please stop crying
for someday soon I will hold you again
within my arms of light and protect you once more,
as we shall live together,
infinitely.
Nothing will ever replace your love
and your presence.
Watching over you,
Always and Forever…
Timeless
and now
Nameless.
Copyright © 1986-2017
Alan Salé
All Rights Reserved
contact: AASalehi@gmail.com
PoetryByAlan.com
Quartet (One Sleeping, Two Crying, One Trying Not to Cry)
There has been a terrible mistake,
the woman tells us, her eyes filling with tears
that she does not let spill over and down
her cheeks, as I do mine, as you do yours.
I feel plunged in sudden darkness and silence
and I move my hand like a blind person
searching for a wall to lean against,
trying to find your hand. Your fingers
link with mine and not for the first time
I notice how soft your hands are; it is like
you have never used them for anything hard.
Her lips are moving, her eyes are looking down
at the folder open on her desk; every now and again
she glances up, but it is obviously too painful
and so she looks down at her folder again.
I can't hear anything she is saying, I will need you
to repeat it back to me a thousand thousand times
from today until we are dead.
My insides feel hollow, as though freshly dug out;
I had this feeling the first time we met you,
but it was a pleasant sensation then.
As we passed row after row of little beds, hopeful
faces watching us pass, sinking back into pillows once
we had moved on, I swear I could feel
the wind rushing through my stomach, my lower abdomen,
cleansing me of what was never there.
Now, you are lying at our feet, asleep, curled around
a stuffed rabbit. There has been a terrible mistake,
they tell me, and the emptiness I feel in my body
is the size and shape of you, although you were never there.
When you want something more than your own life,
lifetimes get poured into days, into hours; even minutes
are celestial eons. How much time is now on the brink
of disappearing? How many seconds, milliseconds, birthdays?
Am I already resigned to this? You are not even gone, yet.
Yet. Yet.
At my feet you begin to stir out of sleep, roused by the sadness perhaps,
or the sound that is made my sadnesses, and I think how awful
it is that you are waking up right now, right at this moment.
So I sink to the floor and burrow myself against your smallness
and whisper, go back to sleep, although you don't know our language.
Not yet.
Enough
There are only so many pieces of us
You have most of mine
Every day I love you more
And you cherish the pieces of my heart
While tossing your own to swine
I fear that soon
I'll run out of heart
And there will be nothing
For you to come home to
My love hasn't been
Enough
I thought it could save you
When you rushed into danger
And came back bleeding
I patched you
And then I bled
Rending open my chest
To give you more pieces of me
I weep not only because you hurt
But because I have not hurt enough
My road has been smooth
And yours a nightmare
Saturated in blood
The imbalance is offensive
I need to take your pain
But you will not give it to me
So I fall screaming onto love's sword
Tearing myself
Like a zealous self-flagellating penitent
I mortify my flesh
With a violent garment of love
Instead of sackcloth or horsehair
Torturing and scarring away the guilt
Of not having suffered as you do
When I have given you my last piece
When I have shed every drop of blood
Leaving only a cracked shell
Will I have loved you
Enough
Or will you still be blind
To your brilliant value
Will you still doubt
Your priceless worth
Despite your scars and broken edges
Will you still let beasts
Take you apart
Ignorant of the divine light in you
Until it is finally
Snuffed
And there is nothing left
Of either of us?
