Where The Lanterns Burn
I wonder what the wind
Says to itself
After passing through
An empty city.
I have gone so far
I remember the city only by its
Lights
So the next time
I find another body
To love,
I hide orange lights
Beneath their shoulders
So when I am moving away
again,
I will know about the
List of people I will have to
Leave behind.
But today, every corner of me
Burns orange.
Something above keeps gathering
Until I can’t tell the difference between
The boy I call
Brother and the man beside me
I want to touch the legs
Of a woman
And ask her why
The storm arrived so late
But her eyes already reflect
The passing
Of rains
I have been collecting midnight
In my palms
And someone wants to split
The head of the building I call home
The alarms won’t work
And on every floor
There is only rainfall
I will walk through the quiet halls
Knowing that everyone
who lived here once
Left with the late trains this morning
I touch walls of the body of
This building
For the first time
Something resembles
A lot like me
Someone keeps gathering above
But they are only
hands, and not the
night
I, too, have been moving through
Crowds that look like tall buildings
In a rage
So, I don’t know
What the storm feels
After breaking into a house
And only finding strangers
But I know what it means
To move into a place
Where no one lives anymore
In violence so unforgivable
But leave everything I touched
Unharmed.
