Cairo

I could never tell you,
not in a thousand years,
the sad soul that I am.
And you in your ways,
refusing the heart she held in her hand,
breaking your own in return.
I am your second best,
best being just enough to love,
and I understand it so perfectly.
You remind me of his shadow,
I stay close to you now,
it makes up for the lost comfort.
We would make beautiful halves,
in some day of another lifetime,
but here we are, you and I,
inept in the proper ways of togetherness,
as we are two people
who are so far removed and
too different to be one.

Seasick

I remember the day you died. The chaos. Idle chatter. Heavy grief. Your door closed everything familiar to me; that wide and bright living room with its overused velvet couch. The room just behind that wall, the patio to the left. The food stains on the ugly gray carpet. The boxy television set in the nook to the left. Your altar to my right, where you laid out food for your Gods so they would bless you, except they gifted you with sadness and pain and memory loss. Death had wrapped its silence around me like a warm silken cloak and kept me there. I was so young, who was I to know how deep this blood flowed, spreading through me like ink. I stood there and watched the world turn and disappear, my vision blurred to whiteness. Voices called to me, telling me I had to get better grades or stop being so angry or cut the weirdness out. They told me to bend into the folds of convention, to become one with others, to try and be artificially happy. And I listened to them, I took their word and walked through their doors and came out with nothing they promised me. Here I am, remembering the day you died. I feel nauseous.