Waiting to be born
I write this window. I write the light that falls through the curtains. Behind the curtains must be a room, where you sit at a table: a pen in your hand, a notebook before you.
You write me. In my dreams you write me.
You have no name - not yet. You have no age, no colour eyes; no hair, long or short, curly, straight, black, blonde or red - not yet. None of that is written yet.
I hear your laughter though.
You love faraway countries, and freshly caught fish, roasted in the harbour, on iron grids. I can’t see what you’re wearing but I can smell you. Like I smell the land and the sea.
This - this must be Indonesia, where I find us.
The fishing ships haul back the night. The evening turns with tomorrow’s smells towards the coast, where you are waiting - like the lone, tall reed that’s standing guard, waiting for a breath of wind to come and hide all of day’s colours from the dark.
Now, what will you write for me?
Am I the fisherman? Am I the silent wave - or the sound of seagulls dreaming you, down on the beach, down by the shore?
This - this is the frozen time: a pen, one heartbeat removed from the paper.
What will appear in that white, empty mirror? I see your hand, your fingertips on the surface of the glass. Your nails write words on what once may well become my skin.
I close these phantom eyes; I close these ghosts of arms around you.
Now: a bed, a ship, a harbour. Your body like the night - like stars in the water, where I have come to swim. Is this what you want? Can you break open these bones; do you whisper my flesh?
I write you. You write me, perhaps.
Am I food though; am I fuel? Am I the God that dies for you - or am I resurrection through you? What colours will you paint me? Are you witness to these dreams, and to the night - and what can I become? Inside you, with you, through you?
Can I come stand before you now?
The curtains and the window open, like Kafka on the last page of The trial. There is the square, where the knife seeks the offering, where I am reduced to an initial - and where you now stand in the open window, looking down upon these written words.
Are you the reprieve Kafka couldn’t bring himself to hope for?
Back to the island; the roasting pits now vague, red smears against the blackened sand; your arms a supposition in the dark; your smell now of the waiting night. I am blood and flesh, moving with the tide. You are the blood and the flesh, that bind me to it.
We move between the water and the sand.
I see the high window, and the curtains. I know you must be in that room, sitting at the table. A pen in your hand, a notebook before you.
Have you come looking for me yet?
My eyes have no colour, my length and weight are undecided yet, my age is for you to determine in time. I am like the paper: patient - an option, until you feel the need for me. Until you call for me, give birth to me.
Until you write me home.