scroll through at your own pace
birds don’t lose their compass
they don’t get nauseated either
but how would i know
i’m not a bird
and i don’t speak bird language
i can still hear your laughter
teta
i hear you
cackling
as you tell and retell
the story of my arrival:
a little purple body
umbilical cord around its neck
your panicked finger
glued to the emergency button
mama
are you angry with me
for choking myself in your womb?
did we lose each other back then
soon before i was born
and long before i was told
that you lost your mind?
i often searched
for the mind they told me you’ve lost
and wondered if you also searched
what happened to the negative space
does the emptiness contain nothing?
can clouds move through
or have new thoughts settled in?
are the new clouds familiar
or strange?
I ask
because you often look scared
birds have immovable eyes
whereas human eyes never rest
not even in sleep
they jump
every second two or three times
fixation to fixation
the choreography of thought
I imagine if
like birds
my eyes were fixed in my skull
I replace every saccade
with a sharp
micro head movement
twitching skull
grinding neck
unfloating brain
my head struggles to keep up with the demands of my eyes
and so I stare
stilling my eyes
for my head to still
respite
in the stabilisation of gaze
then
like a bird
eyes and head locked in space
I set the rest of my body back into motion
so much movement on the outside
will I find lift?
is your straying mind looking for a way back
or is it trying to erase its domestic footprints?
where does my skin end
and where does it begin?
maybe doctors know
push and pull in my jaw
fire behind my navel
ocean sound in my stomach
baba
why do doctors never respond?
brother
maybe you
can answer?
or maybe you can tell me about your relationship
to the land you love to call yours
I know you love the barren mountain heights
a part of me stares at them
through your silent eyes
they are both familiar and strange
maybe substrates of your brain
I recently saw my family in my dream
they were all gathered under the willow tree
the willow tree has long dried up
but its name is still attached
to the forgotten piece of uncultivated land
on the corner of the road where my sister and I
and sometimes a visiting friend
sold popcorn and lemonade to imaginary passersby
nested among the bushes
they were all lit by an intense flashlight
while everything else
including the mountain
sank deep into darkness
like a lonely speck
in the vastness of space
looking straight at me
clapping
stomping
cheering
to the rhythm of ‘buleria’
teta
your bones now nourish
the roots of the mountain
have you become vegetal, or mineral?
I hear your voice in the breeding pond
croaking with the frogs
cursing all men on the planet
I hear the frogs laughing back
millions of years of non-stop babbling
and so I wonder
what are they also sharing?
