there is a line of black on the arm. it isn’t a scar, it is ink. everything is imperfect—the missing letter in your name; the lone pomegranate seed on the living room carpet; the dust behind the dust that was removed; my many hands casting shadows against the wall; the artificial sleep that tires more than it restores. this house isn’t ours. nothing is really ours, though nothing is ever lost.
the sun is setting behind rooftops. we talk about the sky before we talk about what’s underneath. the sky is low, in shades of purple and dusty pink. i am telling you about the sky so i can tell you about my womb, and how deeply it aches. my womb is in a state of unrest. the blood perpetually implodes within me. the lining deteriorates, sheds itself, and falls through, like grains in an hourglass slipping by, one after the other.
we are the colour of the sky and as wide as its expanse. i am your heart and you are my ceiling. we are as deep as the sky and never without stars. we are as far as the sun and never without a well. one star looks out from the sky and through the window. it flickers and is dead, only we do not know that. the star has been there for as long as we can remember, but it has already abandoned us.
under the sky, we listen to the humming in my womb as it bears witness to the memory of unsettled energy.
under the sky, we think twice and we linger, in the deep.