Time has had a strange way of unfurling in these last few weeks. It may be the un-making of days itself - the unpacking of every single digit on the face of a clock. Time has no qualms about wasting itself on you, no regrets.
Mornings sometimes fail to wake me up properly - I am half-asleep as I stumble into a routine of housework - of cleaning and dusting and mopping and hoping for no more bad news. There is no dust for me to clean today, there was no movement to unsettle and settle its particles yesterday. The morning will pass in breakfast table talk of rot and rage, and then aai will go to chop cucumbers for a fresh salad.
In the city, the lights aren’t asked to stay home. Instead, they spread their garish yellow-white wings and leap into rooms, uninvited. These wings pierce the drum of darkness that tried to drown out everything, even the silence. Gaping holes are left in the night. There is nothing else, no sounds to interrupt the strains of music that waft up from the houses around me. This stealthy arbitrariness has crept into my nights, where once the sun sets, it’s anybody’s guess.
I know I long for faces to touch, they are the surfaces of my real home. There are eyes waiting for me yet on the shores of the other ocean, shoulders waiting for my touch. I know I want to hide once again in the silence that is crafted by my favourite breaths - not this weird, misshapen, jagged silence that prowls the streets and throws glances at my dark window.
