Gaiety In A Graveyard

By Zaynab Akbar

My heart was a graveyard before you came
Your arrival was violently gentle
So aggressively you made my barren land your own;
You took my dead trees and breathed life into them as you did me
You forced plants into my grounds
My grounds on which not even the lowest of creatures set foot

My heart was a graveyard and I was the owner
I floated around with my dead friends
Ghosts of memories I had long forgotten
And I was numb to life outside of my little jail
You came and brought the sun and its rays into my territory
It shone yellow and orange on my flesh and made it burn

My heart was a graveyard, completely isolated
You entered and stripped me of my black sheath
And shaded me gold, blended your colors into my pigments
Ever so gently you caressed my thighs, the navy bruises
Faded with your milky touch
And for the first time I felt relief

My heart was a graveyard and it was absolutely abandoned by me
But you filled my gates with love and affection
And when we rose we rose together
Phoenixes in our fire, white flames erupting altogether
Glorious in the ashes of my rusted armor

I was a graveyard until I found gaiety in you
You studied me and I studied you
You looked at my face and memorized the lines in my hands and the calluses on my skin
The wrinkles on my pale lips you embedded into your fore brain
You left no inch of me undiscovered and I did the same for you
I took in your eyes and your pores
I absorbed your scent until it was all I could smell and hear

Then we became skin and bone
I pulled on you and we moved in unison
A cosmic collision
A prophecy come true

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