whole …

whole.

her questions came quick – do i love her,
would we share,
would we dive, into the oceans of each other’s soul.

i was quiet then, silenced, mute.

but i felt something i had never felt before –

i felt whole.

this immigrant skin

this immigrant skin.

empty bottles, discarded cartons, garbage bins,
littered with fragmented shards of myself,
shed, left behind,

amidst the haze of memory, strewn, deafened by the cacophony of hollow tins,
tossed away pieces of who i was, of who i am, of who i ought to be,
ever trying to belong, to fit in,
to touch, to be touched, to be seen, to be able to see.

so i moult, a deceptive social chameleon,
slimy,

deceitful,

charming,

soulless,

smiling,

barren,
casually dumping tattered emotions,

flung aside here,
bits of that old life,

that in the blurry mist swirls,
leaving laughter, streaks of tears down drain hugging boulevards,
of platinum and of pearls,
trashed alongside crushed petals,
as numbed frigid night unfurls.

this immigrant skin,
this malleable face,
my numberless, incomprehensible masks staring back,
a mishmash, a grotesque mosaic,
shadows of yesteryears faces,

worn and torn,
ever straining to break flee,
of this relentless restlessness that gnaws,
teetering on tightropes,
clutching on filaments of hope,

hope,

yes, hope,

hope that i may once again walk free,
all the while searching to find, what i have become, 

the scurrying around to find,

the real me.

   
               _______

( inspired  by Erich Fried’s poem “In Hiding” )