Far Away

“Where are you?”
she would ask, tenderly
stroking my shoulders and back
damp with sweat from yet
another romp

third one tonight
three or four in the morning
now
but I can escape the flashes
when I lose myself in her
fuck off red hair in heavy
curls that bounce and
sway just like her
golden skin that once shone
alabaster, now waxes and
wanes like a fool’s gold
neon sign

“Far away.”
how could she understand
what would she say if I told her
about the singeing paths of
muslim bullets singing jihads
that would flambe the very
air, breathing became
hazardous
moving, unthinkable

would she run if I told her
about the searing
blood as it struck me across
my face in Jackson Pollock-like
brush strokes, blood that belonged
inside a friend who was now
begging me to finish the job
begun by the bullet

“Did you come?”
the hunger in her eyes is almost frightening
but what do I do
what choice do I have
no one who has not been there
could ever hope to understand
the scars it leaves upon your
body and soul

“A little.”
I lie to please but my
condition belies my words
besides
I have every intention of connecting
with her again
when my focus turns to her
writhing body
my thoughts turn less to the past
her moans and prodding
drown out the explosions and
screams

I trade one scream for
another

“Come back to me.”
she pleads with her mouth
and her hands, her nose tracing
the outline of my physique

“You are so far away.”
so near and yet so far
then
not so far now
at least with my body I can
be present

still

in the groping, pawing and
grinding, the twisting of lower
backs and legs, such that it
seemed we would break,
the heat would build to an unbearable
level, and her screams
while she leaned back, arching
impossibly, ripping at the
sheets that were everywhere now

my thoughts would snap
turn to the volcanic night in
abu dhabi, drunk and mistaken
for one of them I managed to
woo a local girl who hadn’t been
local for over four years
having studied in the states and
returned to the emirates out of
filial piety she liked the ‘edge’ of me

she took me to her apartment
encased in white stone like bleached
bone, the floors were marble and
the walls like silk, fell into her bed
as did I
to dance and we did
the music was foreign but the feelings
were not
and she whispered and yelled her
bliss in two languages that spiraled
together to form a third
and as we created a peace treaty between
nations in the most primitive way
our nations roared outside
overcoming our music
our temporary exodus

my soul torn in two
I began to cross between
past and present
and both women glaring at me
with mouths agape and misted
eyes, blue, then hazel, then blue
midnight black hair framing
the bed, then blood red, almost
maroon in swirls and curls
then the one superimposed
upon the other
till neither one needed me
they were together, so I
shut my eyes so tight I began
to tear and my body went
rigid and tight, so tight I feared
I would snap

I would be lost

I would be there again

I was there again

far away

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