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.