The Way Forward
Let the truth of what you want rise
slowly to the surface. These butterfly
wings are not a testament of ease. And all
these hurricanes are misunderstood.
Even moths are merely seeking warmth.
The quiet power of your worthiness
won’t be scribbled on a dotted line.
When I say I love you, I mean let every cell
in my body explode into new generosities.
Each morning you can help me into my shirt
only to rip it open and capture the scattering
of buttons ricocheting on tiles and nightstands.
A primeval pattern. Pounding of hearts.
Like when my ears pick up the softness
of your voice in the middle of the storm.
It was always time to exorcise our hauntings.
To give up picking at old scabs. Repaint
the purple on your ankle, the blue on your knee,
into pink, into ‘Here honey, I’m going to use
my teeth.’ Let every mark from this point onward
be carved into skin as a sign of calm surrender.
True love is boundless. Why fear
the flotsam when we can sit here, on this rock,
singing songs and writing poems? Together
we are not shackled by any norm.
It is liberty that paves the way forward.
Until the Full Moon forces us to sit and listen
to the hum of the future, beckoning. Come.
About the Author: Nada Faris is a writer and literary translator from Kuwait. She is the author of Fountain of Youth (Vine Leaves Press, 2016), a semi-finalist in the 2016 Vine Leaves Vignette Collection Award, and Mischief Diary (HBKU, 2018), a young adult short story collection. She then collaborated with Maha Al-Asaker on Women of Kuwait (Daylight, 2019), which became a finalist in the Lucie Photobook Award. Nada recently translated Bothayna Al-Essa’s Arabic novel Lost in Mecca, which was shortlisted for The 2024 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation and named a Notable Translation by “World Literature Today.”
Website: http://www.nadafaris.com
Instagram: @thenadafaris
Image Credit: Mary Altha Nims “Rose Bush and Butterfly” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 