I wrote a poem in early 2019. I think I had it started and finished in-between classes, with the window at my back and the cool sunlight puddling on my scalp. I wasn’t feeling too good.

This is what I wrote.

Birmingham

… is the sunset melting down the walls of a prison cell, the light filtering between the cold bars of a window. We were told that we would be there for two years. It’s year six, and we have grown tired of the cell. We want to go out into the sunlight and meander the grass, have our pale flesh kiss the heat. But the guard who promised to break us out has vanished. We are waiting for him to return.

… is the light glinting off the axe of an executioner, the glimmer of hope that your soul has met no definitive end, a vague promise of shelter somewhere unknown. It is the closest you have ever felt to God and Heaven, the peaceful surrender to uncertainty. It is the last compassion you are given before you die. But your executioner twiddles indecisive with his weapon while you wait in agony, and your moment of triumph morphs into the certainty of finality. You cannot see the light on the dry, flat iron.

… is the rhythm of an elder’s heartbeat against your cheek, his bony hands toying weakly with the youth of your hair, his little eyes gazing blankly at the ceiling. It is the confidence of life within a shy carcass, the rhythm that prevails from one’s childhood to one’s elderhood, as the heart fights to dance through the pain of age. It is a daily struggle for him, to elevate a body so heavy in his layers of years and stories and beckon him forward into another day. But the heart lives in constant fear of tripping on his quick little toes, of falling and breaking. And you fear, because with him your heart breaks, too.

… is the wind, the chill, consuming you, as your last match quivers weakly in the breeze and the snow. As you embrace the reality that the match has burned out and excitedly wait to lie down by the church and sleep in the cold forever. As you realize you no longer want the pain of survival and want it to be over with. But the match, the damn match flickers! It won’t dwindle or fade away! And you don’t want to burn your purple fingers or dredge the heat, it no longer alleviates a thing.

… is the sea clothing a castaway, as he has grown tired of waiting to be retrieved, as he finds a bed in the ocean and closes his eyes to the burning sun. It’s the peace of the silence, the moisture, the heat. The horn of your ship no longer brings a relief, only an interruption from the momentum. 

Copyright © Blanca Parga 2020