11 September, 2011

Tongues


One morning we woke up,
rolled over to greet each other
and the day, and the words
that left your mouth
were nothing more
than a series of syllables
I could neither interpret
nor understand. At first
I thought it was
one of my fucked up dreams
and I tried to talk back
thinking, maybe,
once I opened my mouth
those same sounds
would fall from my lips
and I would be granted --
the way fire falls on an apostle--
the ability to understand.

But you looked at me
first confused, then annoyed
like the way you do
when you think
I'm being an ass
or playing some joke
no one but me will
ever get. We roll out of bed,
go through the ablutions
and rituals of our morning:
coffee brewing, finding clothes
feeding the cats. You
are stressed and I am
waiting on caffeine
that (I hope) will lend clarity.

You walked out the door,
muttering in your muted dialect
after blowing a kiss at me
and lighting your second cigarette
of the day. The scent of them
still gets me; and I am reminded
of late nights when we would
sit up and talk because
each moment meant something sacred,
because our tongues were
something sacred, and we somehow felt
like it would never come again
and how the scent of you
and the taste of you
would linger when I would have to
sneak out of your dorm room
early in the morning
to escape detection.