Howl for the half

A field, eventually blends to blue.
Not bruise, just stain, I meant forever.

The wind, a ribbon, gliding west to east,
my fingers never quite reaching, how I try.

A crown of petals, it was: you sail, you settle.
It is never as easy as this.

Remember how your mother wove her palms
through your hair, but your ends still split.

How there was never a choice, you had to choose.

Dirt to your memories.
And dirt to your questions.
And dirt to your thoughts.

You were told to bury them long ago.

There is a spring that has laid claim to your flesh,
splays roots through your bones, so deep,
flowers grow under-ground here.

You, with thumbtack thorns on your knuckles,
a rose, blooming, dying, in your lungs.

Bottle this, name this perfume: ‘battle lost’.
How I come home everyday reeking of it.

And where is your tongue, your real tongue, when they ask:
And what are you: founded or unfounded?

A girl is the whole sky—

No.

No moon. No stars. I meant alone.

By S.A. Khanum

Biography:

S.A. Khanum is a writer from the UK.