I used to
know love, a while back when I was younger. When my heart had this hunger, and
now I can’t say. Trying hard to remember the day; when the masked men broke in,
tried stealing her treasure, spilled her onto the pavement next to crack vials
and broken needles. Small children play, and little feet tatter all over. And
now, I’m older…and the feeling is numb. Trying to find my heart in the middle
of this slum, and I vaguely hear her whispers but the gun shots are too loud,
my ego is too proud and the mask men still linger. Somewhere in the shadows,
covering the truth. I’m somewhere lost in my youth, and now I don’t know me
I used to
know love, and I would hop, skip and giggle. Red flushed cheeks when the boys
would chase me now the cops chase the boys, and no one is left to embrace me.
Tell me about the past, when my heart was pure…untainted, and free. Tell me
about me! And then I can know love and see her, touch her gently and be sweet.
No longer know defeat to the men in the mask, save her from the hands of the
unforgiving streets.
I used to
know love, it was hidden between the breast of a mother and the little baby’s
cheek. I saw it a while back, hidden in the pain of my father’s feet. It was in
his drops of sweat. Inside my grandmother’s macaroni. Hidden in my uncle’s
sandwich between the cheese and bologna. I knew her, had her in my grasp. And I
just want to know me again, somewhere between the high grass. I knew love once,
I kept her here with me, on the top and to the left, but was a victim of theft.
They stole her away while the lilacs were blooming in the magnetism of the moon
on a cool day in June. And they just left her, left her bleeding in the streets
where the prostitutes walk, where the houses are crumbling and the children are
dying. Left her in a place that fathers don’t go, cops don’t show and everyone
is oblivious.
I used to
know her…I used to know love.
Hanifah
Abdul Khaleeq
