My lockdown is a bed of moist soil
Sprigs of thoughts grow everyday
And sometimes, might just blossom
into an epiphany.

Today for instance. He yelled again,
and I cannot remember why --
Screams tend to numb my mind
And I can't think.
I just stared silently at the plum bruise
from yesterday
bearing witness to our marriage.

The news channel chants "21 day lockdown" almost ominously.
I laugh, almost snarl at their complaints.
Why did a lockdown not bother me?

Then it dawned.
I'd been in one the last 10 years.

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1. I'll cut down on the apologies by hurting you less. I know that the "sorries" no longer heal your wounds.

2. I wish the mirror in your room was the vision in my eyes. Then you could see how lovely you look.

3. I know what it's like to put yourself out there and toil. Build a fortress of hopes and watch fate blow it away. I've been there. Hold my hand. I'm sorry.

4. I'll stop telling you I know exactly what it's like. I don't. I do not know how you deal with the abuse, but you wear your pride like an armor. Grow, my love, grow.

5. I know you're worried when it's 9pm and I haven't returned your calls. You're the parent every child needs.

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I always imagined lockdowns
in sepia tones-
relics of the past
when freedom was a rationed good.

Today, a virus turns dictator
ordering people off the streets.
Speech fills the air less than fear
prayers dance nervously
on people's lips.

Day after passing day,
Shelves fill, businesses die
The color red on world maps
spreads, like rivers of blood.

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they ask us to wear masks
to protect ourselves.
What do they know?
We don
them everyday
like a second skin.

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The most haunting memory of her
was the suddenness of surrender.
Not the disheveled hair, rivers of blood
or fissured bones, but the half-breath
that lay stillborn in her throat.

-

Your eyes, once
limpid pools,
now, fields,
barren.

-

It was a cold, dank day with the sky the color
of a soiled mop. But when the doorbell rang,
I was ready. I opened the door to find her
shyly shifting her feet, a kiss of summer
in her flushed cheeks and bronze skin. Time
had woven wrinkles around her eyes but
her smile was untouched, as if preserved
in a vessel of youth. I reached for her hand- still
silk to touch, a cluster of scars littering her wrist.
Her warm eyes betrayed a flicker of pain as I drew
her into an embrace, choking back memories of
her pained late-night calls, screaming for an escape
from her husband. Above us, a charcoal sky erupted
in a soft flurry of rain. Yesterday, she had buried her past
in a faraway place, and for us, it was honeymoon at last.

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How I Resemble My Mother

Eager to be an amalgam of answers
to everyone's requests, we tilt our bodies
in the direction of command, smile still
intact. Our voices do not climb past a
half-register before they are shown their
place. Internal voices continue their
bitter ascent. We wrap our words in
<insert sunshine metaphor here> at
the slightest hint of someone's tears.
Our breaths are just a little shallow, a
little too eager. We plant thoughts
and watch their roots grow wayward.
When did I get here? I grew up watching
her worries deepen into her skin, hoping
to trace my own parabolic path. Every year,
it stubbornly bows into a circle.

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Things I'm Still Holding Onto

A word still fresh from a memory
cast in a dark shade of grey,
stripped from its rosier cousin.

Pants several sizes small in hopes
I can vaporize a fraction of my weight,
a crumpled list of thrift stores if I don't.

The note from my first ever gift
from someone I wish I could forget.

An almost-empty bottle of perfume
for a whiff of happier times.

A mental keepsake box of past rejections,
and a book of definitions for myself
that borrows from them,

A copy of Murakami's Norwegian Wood,
because where else can you find
liquid love between the covers?

Vestiges of my inner child,
while my body, in all its creaking glory,
migrates to the next decade.

And finally, an open jar of dreams.
I let go of the lid.

-

Sunlight drips over roads
lined with skeletons of trees
bearing damage in their tresses.

The air is laden with requiem and apathy.
We walk in somber silence
watching a charcoal sky crawl down
until it kisses a drying earth,
defeat tucked in its crevasses.

I remember sonnets written for the sky
centuries ago
calling her a pool of blue.
Azure, cerulean.
Some words will fade into the ebony smog, forgotten.

If only people had realized sooner
time was barmecidal
and the shadows of their mistakes,
perennial.

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