This sense, a new sense, of knowing when something is about to end. Hearing it approach; feeling it thicken: the full-stop, the sadness, the surety that things are just not going to be the same anymore.
I fight it, at first. Of course I fight it. A beginning—is a gift. An end, less easy to see as one. So, I fight it, and in the process, end up making some idiotic, hasty move that will inevitably bring the end closer.
My brother once tripping was staring at a chess board and it occurred to him: there is no wrong move.
With people, I don’t know if I can believe that. Like, should I not have said that thing? Should I not have called you that time, maybe not assumed…?
Had I done something different, would you have stayed.
*
Only two people in the world have understood the fire in my eyes. One, a friend over dinner, the first time we met, the only time we met, a brief but certain friend who invited me for dinner while I was living the aftermath of my first heartbreak.
Your eyes, she wrote to me after. It’s like you have — — — ——.
The second time, a brief lover. We were making love. When you look at me, he said, — — — — ———.
*
Quietly, you move. Quiet in that there is no conversation between us. I hear your sounds, though—sound of you moving across the bar, making a drink, wiping the counter. Sound of you changing the music. It used to be easy between us, the music. Now it is full of a tense awareness, the awareness of not looking at each other. With music the only trick is to let go and let in what is happening. But this kind of tension is the opposite. What is happening, what is ending? If I am constantly trying to figure that out, rummaging in my brain, then I’m not with the music.
*
The Sufis taught me to watch the fire. You light a candle, then sit fixed before it. The idea is that you cultivate surrender. That’s what I have figured—I’m not sure if that’s what the Sufis intended.
*
My brief-beloved lights a fire every night. I watch him. On the fifth day, I ask him to teach me.
My imagination grows— like a flame.
*
I’m hurt by the brazenness of the tarot reader but I’m listening to him.
Where’s your fire? he is appalled. I don’t see a single fire card, he says. You don’t start things, do you? It’s not that you can’t. You’re lazy. And afraid of failure. You think things that are meant for you will just happen to you. And maybe they do. But if you don’t start making your own moves, this is gonna be a big problem.
*
You know that moment a flame grows? It is no different than the moment of watching & understanding a love deepening. A colour is added: a height reached. If you are lucky. Some of us are lucky, like that. Me, I am not. Even though my name means it.
I have been thinking that I should change my name.
*
You light a fire. I sit by it. I move my hand towards you. You turn it away.
*
I try to do what I learned from silence. I watch the feeling, the texture of the feeling. Above us, a full moon. Before me, heat.
The heart breaking: another source of light, if you let it in.
*
Explaining the directions one day, my friend says: Just get off where you see the lights.
*
Fire is unpredictable. That is its main lesson.
A piece of wood erupts from the fire. I immediately pick it up with my hands, and fling it back into the pit. My brief ex-beloved, impressed, claps. How did you know to do that?
But my hands wish to burn against yours—
*
My friend in the other city, on the phone. Laughing, concerned. Says, Don’t come here, there is nothing here. You will be disappointed.
I want to tell her disappointment ignites me too.
*
When lighting a stubborn agarbatti or diya, I have gotten so good at recognizing the moment the flame transfers. It’s the same with people. And body knows it before eyes do.
*
I hate and desire his laugh. How do I make hate sacred like love?
My God, you are cruel. But at least you are here, even in this.
i just keep reading your words over and over again <3 this is so beautiful!
my god, Sadia, your words ❤️