El Dolor es Una Maravillosa Cerradura /Pain is a Marvelous Deadbolt (Blanca Varela, Peruvian Poet)

 

 

And you shut it tight with a smile. All that remains is the illusion of being complete, piece by piece. Of being attainable.

With time, those pieces become warped and do not fit together again. But you do not un-shut the deadbolt. Rather, you find new pieces to fill the gaps. The cracks. So tight, that no light is seen through.

You fill your red wine glass with white wine. Without regrets. And for all the sunsets you missed, you raise that glass to a name you never met. To the memories of all those without names.

Of that deadbolt you speak rarely. Sometimes you only think about the door it holds tight. The one that was repaired with new parts. The one that does not let light pass through.

And then, one sunrise, you wash your red wine glass with a promise, wipe it dry with scar tissue, and fill it with cold coffee left from a previous sunrise.

And you walk pass the door, the deadbolt still on it. The coffee tastes like the first coffee you brewed in an old land. Or perhaps like the second one. But the wine glass warms your hands.

You are not attainable at that moment. Because it belongs only to you.

And at sunrise, you go to the seaside of a city of steel and concrete, and feed your inner Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

 

November 14, 2024

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024