All day I’ve dreamed of you
(for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee)

Once, once you were like Persia to me.

    For the last time, show me the ways
    to love. Cue me its despair. It’s hardship.

This deprivation that must follow its

    demise. This starvation that must follow
    its poverty. This progress. This madness
    that eats away at my soul. It twinkles like noisy stars,

those glam beauty queens with their own illustrious alibis,
    their lunar emptiness and subtle-subtle
 subterfuge.

    No more walking in circles for me, friend.
    No more wishing the past is gone while
sitting in at my kitchen table. I’m over that bridge.

    These stars have their own silent-silent
    moon-sick horses. Moon-sick bones. Butterflies in their governing
   confusion leaving scratch-marks on

    the seawalls of my stomach. The red brick
    walls of my lungs. I think your parade
beautiful. I think you’re lovely. I think you’re

    Jupiter. Does it matter. Does it matter.
    I think of those Caucasian stars pasted
on the ceiling of the night sky. I am ready to confess.

    Does it matter that I am only ready to
    confess now. I am trying to erase the beast-monster.
Monster-beast that has made me suffer so.

    The forest was painted. It even had
    wrinkles. Age lines made out of soul.
    Spidery leaves marking the end of

time, that

    hourglass country, a hive found there
    in the segmental ruins of the God-supernatural
found in the honey and milk and blood-

    work of the desert. Let’s take a trip
    out there to where the wind blows. That
    infant deed. Can you tell. I’m dreaming

    of those Parisian-syllables. The ethereal.
    The apparition of that high mountain-top.
    That drum. That prophet. God’s lions.

    Elijah. David. Jeremiah. Job. Jonah.
    God’s chosen. There were others. There were others.
    I’ve written about this before. Falling in love

    and falling out of love but I’ve never
written about our love before. You made the veins in
    my heart splendidly narrow so that only

    the pure river could flow through.
    The smell of roses. Old wounds forgotten.
    Only the reigning legend of the

    sparse river could get through
before anything else. Before the blood itself. I wanted you to
    know that I’m pressed for time. That

    you’ve been a legend in my life before
you became a legend in real life. I’m
writing this to thank you for not taking me

    all the way to madness like the others
did. You were the virtuous one. You
   were the one who saved me. I just

    thought that you should know that.
I’ve been carrying that around with
    me for the longest time. You were

    genuine. They were fake but I ate
    their cake anyway because I was
young.

    I called myself victim under a
million stars.
    I just wanted you to know that life

    is different for me now. I’m no longer
    running up streets and down streets in
Johannesburg.

    I’m authoritative when it comes to
    my feelings now. I don’t try to slip a yes in
when I mean no. I’ve learned how to say no.

    Oh, I also know what thirst is.
    But I don’t project my hate unto
other people and I listen to others (which I never did before).

    This grid, I have put it away.
    It is an exile like me. I don’t
know yet if it must be forgotten.

    I keep watch over spring or
    it keeps watch over me. I don’t
know which. I only know this.

    Sometimes when I get angry
    my anger is as hot as a desert and I don’t
ask for permission. Only that you listen. I forget.

    Please forgive me when I forget. Please,
please, forgive me when I forget myself. Once, yes,
    once, you were like Persia to me.

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Abigail George has two books in the Ovi Bookshelves,
"All about my mother" & "Brother Wolf and Sister Wren"
Download them, NOW for FREE HERE!