tintamarre
“Though you caught me and you know why//They breathe in the deepest part of the water.”
I’m washed up on a shore of white feathers and couscous. Wherever I’ve been is following me like the pink tower of the mosque that peeks with long lashes through the sunbeams. The palm fronds obscure my vision and I’m grateful for the disguise. I can be whomever I want to be out here. I am walking in your arms and the space is too wide between where I am now and where I was even a day ago. I was pushed from the Sahara into the blue skies of the Moroccan city and I was not ready for the street carts and skinny horses. Poverty leaves lead in my mouth and I don’t know how much to give at the market. I paid twenty dirhams for a mango smoothie. What is the true cost of something? Surplus adds its seasoning and reason goes out the window with scarcity. The word I chose for this year was abundance. I can skip around in my pink romper because of my Western privilege and sometimes I wish my skin were green or purple, or blue. How others treat me is a reflection of how I look; I am too old to be timid and too young to be that bold. When we lay in the grass, I asked you where you wanted to be and you said the future. To see the technology. I always want to go backward from where I am, though my pace is so far ahead I’ve lost track of the prints in the sand. I chose the pyramids and crystals, and you said I would have been a slave. Isn’t that where we are now? I thought to ask and then paused—the sun was sliding down the temple and women were departing with their faces covered.
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