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Sehr
by Sheikha A.

I was here for his lungs –

my one truest – traipsing

through lives bearing his

cord to my navel – my one

soulmate. I come from

a progeny of loyalists;

we attach ourselves

to those we love – he

was my generation gone 

and yet to come. He fell

easy, it was never hard to get

him to love me – the runner

that he has always been –

only never stayed in my forever.

It was becoming tiresome

chasing, making him remember

our love that was meant to be – us, 

the surviving unit of the universe. 

He cut my cord each life

as he was going to yet again.

I was going to let him go –

I had evolved/awakened/

enlightened to the spirit of 

the highest good – abandoning

my need to wear him like skin;

to exchange flesh and blood –

so many lifetimes in birth 

and death – he’d forget my taste

in his memory. Each time I ate

a piece of him, we’d vow on blood

we’d never part. My body must

have carried scars far many than

the stars in several galaxies –

all the lifetimes of running

blades on each other in fervour;

desperate promises of never

losing the other again. We’d find

each other by these maps we carved;

all these lifetimes of youth

and old age, wasted. Confused

and dazzled just how he always was,

I decided to stop chasing. But, I could

keep some of him – any of him – if not

his soul this life around. I caused

his brain to die; I dug my hands in

his burning body to fetch from where

he breathed – from where he inhaled

knowing – his life insulated mine

by every organ; we would stop

meaning to be – the plan of source. 

His skull shivered under the tongue

of the flames. I didn’t let him reduce

to ash – how could I –

stop making him to be.

I left his heart – to be free –

I snatched his lungs – as if –

so he’d never find human form

in whatever life he chose to return.

Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

More from author Sheikha A.:

Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!