By the Fig and the Olive

7

I'm grieving the absence of something I never had. 

Whose presence I felt nip at my fingertips.

Like a playful cat

Or a roaring fire

Sometimes I closed my eyes and imagined for a moment 

Behind my eyelids flashed the headlights of the future I longed for

It only jarred me more when I opened them to stare at my bedroom ceiling

And it never felt good

In some ways I am lucky

Religion has taught me that I have everything worth having

And someday, I'll have all I've ever wanted

It just won't be here

And it will not be with you

Sometimes I feel it more than ever

And I marvel at my inability to describe it

But I shall try just the same

It's not an emptiness, nor is it a weight

It isn't suffocating or painful

I think, It's almost like a box

that you keep filling with items

and no matter what you put into it you have the feeling that it's horribly wrong

and doesn't belong there

so you take it all out

and start again

And you think to yourself:

If I find the right object, this feeling will go away.

And it is unpleasant, so you really do want it gone

But the moment you find something, and you feel like

This is it, this is what will fit

You place it gently down

And pull it back up.

I understand now the concept of wanting. 

But I also understand, that it is like candle wax

longing for the lit match

That I am sheer silk craving the heavy embroidery needle

I know it will snag me

I know I will melt.

We aren't wrong for wanting 

We came from soil and clay and from everything we yet do not know

We came from a place the world doesn't believe in

And I sometimes wonder, if the tugging at my heart I feel

That makes me think I long for beauty, money, clothes

Is simply thread tangled up

and at the end, is just a longing to go back to where I came from.

Aisha. B