Senseless

Photo by Asyah Saif

We read between the lines and failed to see the obvious. We saw the meaning behind the words but forgot to look at them within the context. They screamed, pleaded and begged for our attention, until we couldn’t hear their whispers, erasing them from all existence. They fell, they crumbled; they turned from divine dialect to hollow letters, twisted, crumpled. And so, we read between the lines of nonexistent phrases.

We listened to the music and broke it down to Do, Re, Me and You. We forgot to hear the melody behind the notes, forgot there was a violin crying its story, a harp drifting into sleep, a flute repeating: “I’m sorry.”  We wrote down the notes in ink on paper, not in sound on soul. And so, we listened to the music of instruments that played no more.

We looked at paintings and saw hues and values, warm and cool. We saw colours interact; muted pushing forward that which was too bright.  We didn’t see the brush strokes, afraid but hopeful to create a message, an image of the image in a timid mind. We didn’t see the lines that joined into the shapes that told a tale of souls that never met… two souls that knew each other but never saw beyond the colours of their oils, wet on wet.

We touched, but we didn’t dare to feel. We wore the veil of pride until its fabric became our skin. We didn’t let my skin upon your skin break into our hearts, reveal that both of us were frightened, holding back, holding breath. A handshake stronger than informal, a hug longer than friendly. A smile deeper than happy, a glance slower than curious. We didn’t let ourselves touch each other beyond our skin.

We were afraid to be blinded by beauty, deafened by beauty, brought to our knees by beauty.

We were, were we not?  

Stay Still, In Motion

Photo by Asyah Saif

Sit still, just the way you are, the way you always do.

Sit still and smile, pretending there are no monsters rummaging through your chest of memories, of what has been, what never will.

Don’t move, because we know that if you do, you will break into a million pieces reaching for the past.

Don’t break. Stay still.

Sit still, but breathe, and in your breath, I will hear the symphony of a thousand cries tearing through the walls of pride. I, too, will want to join them, have my say. I, too, will want to break you… but I will hold my breath, I’ll wait.

Sit still and watch as I peal away the layers of your disguise, the heavy armor of strength and valor. Let us discover your bruises, find those wounds. I will not heal them; the sword that cut you through was mine. But you must see them, and so do I.

Stay still… but convince me—I beg you!—that you are in motion. Convince me, not by showing me the smiles of others, not even yours. I don’t want to see the map with routes that you have taken, paths discovered, roads yet to be travelled.

Those forsaken and forgotten—show me those.

Why erase them? I can see your pencil marks, feeble dents on fragile skin. Take a pen, choose the brightest colours—mine are gold and sliver—and put them in. Put them in, in words and lines and shapes and shades of colours. Put them in, and show me that you are in motion.

Convince me, that you have moved on.