Stilte

Silence comes back into the room and makes herself comfortable.

She looks like one of those long glamorous girls from the 1920s, all dressed in white, leaning sideways on my bed as if it were a chaise longue. She blinks slowly with those dreamy eyes of hers and glances at me, at the wall, at the window.

I’d like to tell her that she’s got the wrong address, that she shouldn’t be here, but she’s wise enough to distinguish the cold, stale air as inviting incense, the mess on the floor as a trail to the bright red spot where my venae cavae lead.

Tonight I shall have a dream, and she won’t be in it. Oh, temporary solace for her lips of winter morning!

Urumqi

I fell in love, and my love had the taste of goodbye. The tip of my tongue was stung with bittersweet longing.

To be far from every coast, to be helpless and unable to even fathom the hope of blue merging in blue…