making peace with toothaches.

there has been a poem stuck between my molars
from the night before I decided the hands of my wrist-watch
needed someone better to wait for. there wasn't one metaphor
for time I missed with us and I know you asked the half
a century worth of summer alcohol in your veins this
more times than I did;


"you don't get to hurt over dumping a year of alienation
in one fight he never saw coming," but you see, now
the backs of my hands don't hurt with morning sickness.
I don't fake spasms in my nerve endings louder
than my mind's own dark places; I have learned to say no
after swallowing that I had to deny you so many things
you asked for well before you earned right to them. for starters,


i. you did not earn the glorious, then-private hourglass
of my body. you begged with the reserved desperate
in your sly grin and showed off the glisten of my virgin skin
on deceiving pixels.  

in your virtual hands, my body felt limp-- a bottom-heavy
chalice of airless vessels.


ii. you did not earn the love of my god you exhausted right
out these butterfly-chambers. you exhumed my prayers
from the peace of your eyelids and threw it out to sea,
thinking a calypso will blow back to its chrysalis,
shores away.


iii. you did not earn the first honest crack
in my fetal curve at night.


iv. you did not earn the right to call me beautiful when you saw me
undress for the first time. the softness of my face was relevant,
my eyes a piercing control.


v. you did not earn my coffee-black bitter
etched in every memory I once laced with fondness.

instead you earned your place in my loathe for islands,
for a storm-story once seen from every vantage point to make
sense to my siren tail.

your words were once the currents in my heart-- without
direction and so minute, unaware of where they could be
electrocuted into life; at the very least, I am glad
that has not changed.

I am glad that you haven't written one true eviction
since we parted our personal penchants. I am glad the curiosity
you nestled in your worry-lines found a quiet project to work
through. there is not one concrete blame in my pocket,
collecting dust on the cold war I wage against you
(nearly) everyday.

in the investment of our lives, I am glad mine
was never set in stone and my father leaving, carved
you uneasy; you were the only man I prayed
for to leave me without pain. isn't it curious
how god listened so carefully
to my only insincere prayer?

alhumdulillah

pulling your weight is no easy chore and I am sure
that you dropped mine under your rugs at the earliest.
you were my loveliest mistake till you became my only;
that is not set to change.

subhanallah