given first lines

Where were you last night?  
I called Your name in the bright lights and noise of that room
And my sound ricochet
with nothing to absorb it
back to my brain where it ricochet some more
looking for an out, an escape
I was not brave, I was not strong
I could not embrace this suffering - I did not want it

Tick-tock-tick-tock.
Push, she said.  Almost there, she lied.
Tick-tock-tick-tock.
I pushed but my body fought, seized and freezed.
Tick-tock-tick-tock.
Almost there was no relief, everything was only greater:
my fear, my pain, my no, nO, NO, NOO!

And You were here,
with my baby girl
and my pain,
in the night



I met him on the stairs, more than once, on more than one set of stairs.

The first set of stairs was in Yayalar.  I had heard the guests come in, and I was on my up from the lobby to my room.  The pension was small and so I new these guests were new, but I was too shy to turn around and look.  I kept walking up the stairs and he only saw my legs in sneakers climbing those stairs.

The second set of stairs, we were both coming down.  It was in Ortakoy - Istanbul after a lunch of fish by the sea.  His feet slipped on the slippery and worn wood and he fell, sliding down the stairs and taking my feet from under me.  The hollow of the wood boomed and ended at the bottom in a spectacular heap with my the late and slow tak-tak-tak of my water bottle trailing down the stairs behind us.

The whole restaurant had stopped to look.


If I went there a second time I wonder if things would be different.  I wonder if I would be able to find my center instead of losing myself.  I wonder if I could do it this time, or if I would lose myself all over again.  I'm not sure I should even take that risk.