Oh as we waltz in the eye of the hurricane,
and shuffle with the storm, slaughtered,a
Oh as the prodding rivers of lust
dance in our veins, pulling us
where we so want to go:
into the bed of yes and no.
All this for an epiphany!
For in case you haven’t noticed,
we are slowly becoming everything
to one another
And in this I-don’t-know
that we have painted on Love’s canvas,
we remain handcuffed to the rest of them,
There is more in us; we both know it,
and when we succumb, so does our fear;
So, as we hang our minds with the clothes to dry,
I recall you warning me, when we briefly dove back
into the unknown once: “This is not just an
elephant in the room; it’s the universe.
It’s our universe, somehow.”
And I couldn’t stand that I walked alone,
even if for a while, because we had become
intimately acquainted with our idea –
a fetus of love – and red was finally splashed
on whitewashed walls, red and purple, too –
that’s the way you liked it, like it, beneath
all the layers
We contemplate
how they can call this evil – this seed that led to us,
All we had to do is choose and choice overtook us
You see, lover – ours is neither for gazelles nor swans,
and after this has registered, it will be exactly like that moment
when a war is over, that timeless moment when
you can actually feel the void between a flower
and its roots,
And in case you have blocked out the rays of the sun,
let me remind you that learning how to love
is a star bursting in the galaxy, it happens all the time
We may romanticize it, but it is actually
filled with a fiery push and shove, that lies and calls itself love
Still, somehow, we found each other among the violent particles
exploding into existence, clamoring to occupy space,
until there was no other way but to you and me
Right before this, I wanted to disappear into nothingness,
though I knew that I could only be nothing with you,
What is ours is a twist, a blow to having, knowing,
We have no immunity to what is so recklessly, deliciously ours,
and that’s what makes it so, so, so [fill in the blank]
Nejoud Al-Yagout, a Kuwaiti poet, essayist and blogger, is the author of three anthologies of poetry: This is an imprint, Awake in the Game of Pretending and Ounces of Oneness. Her articles and poems have been featured in Tikkun, Best Self Magazine, Women's Spiritual Poetry, Thought Catalog, The Master Shift, Kuwait Times, Arab Times, and The Divan. www.nejoudalyagout.com