One Day, By Virtue of Dérive

It's still coming back to me.

The fingers he was shy about wearing the pages of a book meant for him.

Built for him.

Devoured by him.

The chalkboard paint that covered your kitchen walls and the pristine grocery lists you wrote upon them.

The only time you appeared truly at peace was while reading.

I admired this in you.

I feared it as well.

(pause)

A list of what I remember:

The swish of your hips.  The cut up menstrual pads in your bathroom.  The scent of flowers mixed with pine.  The shelf that held almost every work of Genet.  The pieces of paper taped to the wall telling your story of poverty and...heroin? I never knew which drugs you used. The black bands you got tattooed a few days after you met me to hide the tattoos you were embarrassed of.  You never told me what they were.  Two thick, black bands. One for your mother. One for your father.  They are still very much alive.

(pause)

I dreamt of the scar underneath your chin the night you contacted me. I had not seen it so closely, so vividly in so long.

How deceptive dreams can be.

I think of you often and always.

When reading
listening to music
walking in certain parts of the city.

It is strange
those maps we drew
and how they folded in upon me.

Zarina Hashmi, Journey to the edge of land (1994)

(title reference origin):  Dérive