Frame Without A Picture

Pack your sac, it is time to continue. All you have now is that cotton bag, with strings you have pulled across continents and around people you kissed goodbye. This is it, you have to put your life in this tired bag, fit it in your sac, and throw it over your shoulder.

You are beautiful, and you are now lonely. I wish I could kiss you long but I have already said goodbye when I kissed you promising to keep your joy in me. That I would wake up on rainy nights to rub my feet tired of the travel in time and dreams. But now you have to pack your bag, put in in your sac, like a sailor, like a newlywed. You are now lonely and once you were beautiful.

What will you put in that cotton bag? Remember, you have to carry it upon your back, so make it light. Will it have a picture of a face you touched with your face? Will it keep the small bottle of rose perfume you never used? Or would you pack that blue blanket smelling of mothballs and the passion of long stays on the old couch? Will that blanket still smell of him? Smell of her?

It is not easy to fit a life in a sac. It is not fair to choose what to put in the cotton bag. It is not fair to continue when you feel like an old dog sleeping on the concrete.  An empty bag will hold the space of your days, empty or full.

Your teeth do not ache, and your eyes are still of that blue where brown eyes fell and stayed for a while. Your breasts are now personal, as you touch them alone and not very often. Yet your hips still dance that dance which made violins forget their Gypsy past. You are beautiful, and you are holding an empty bag.

Pack your sac, it is time to continue. I will help you choose an old picture, an incense burner, and a dull knife. I will pull the strings of your cotton bag, and then put it in your sac. On top, you will help me neatly fold the blue blanket and make it fit. Then, you will throw the sac upon your shoulder, look at me hoping that I will say goodbye.  

But I will just look at you, long and tenderly, for you are beautiful. For you will not fill my sac when it is time for me to pack it. 

And I will look at you leave, lonely, with your sac upon your shoulder. Where you were able to fit your life, and, without regret, leave mine out.

November 17, 2012

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013