By: Zachary Jansa
I could be pale faced and shaved
But I prefer the opposite
I could be in Chicago, waiting on the masses to hop the train and start my job at nine
But I prefer the desert
I can fill this page with the stars I’ve seen
A million points of black ink for each a luminescent mirage in the sky.
Has there ever been colors so vibrant before today?
The burgundy sand floods the land at Wadi Rumm like an ocean of blood
Has there been a sky so bright at night?
Has there been tears so burnt?
In that frigid room with you,
Illuminated by the mother;
An overwhelming scent of propane and tobacco.
There were your tears
Staining the ground at Al-Za’atari
And reflected by the rage in my eyes.
My boots are tarnished
And they shall be tarnished even more.
My muscles will ache when I trek to Damascus.
And I shall hold up your robes in Victory.
This I promise you.
I have wandered through the snow at dawn.
A drunken master is a child already lived.
But it was her eyes that shone through the hazy memory
But it is the eyes of the old, the weary, and the departed
That drive into my conscious.
And that will move the rust mountains.
The wind will protest and blow me far from who I was.
The sun wraps only around the outside.
I am afraid each time I remove my boots
That my feet will not be battered enough,
That the ground will not be stained with enough blood.
And now spring has come and the bricks across my window have eroded away
Through torrential rain and I feel nothing but inert ecstasy.
My feet can synch with the beat of the music.
The rhythm flows as I progress through Mt. Hope.
Am I moving fast enough?
Can I ride my father’s Chevy into the night?
With nothing in my way, but the bricks ahead.
Now I can see her face, crying in that stairwell at night.
Illuminated by the neon outside.
She is pink and purple and blue and red.
A full spectrum of sorrow, a friend.
I cannot help but feel I am abandoning the colors,
Now I see her face, crying through the black veil.
In an encouraged diaspora,
I will meet you in Damascus.