Home » Poems » Maya Kaabour » You Remind Me ( Part 1 )

You Remind Me ( Part 1 )

You remind me of sleep.
A nap on the cool tile
That makes the heat rush
Out of my cheeks
In all shades of 
Red and pink.

You remind me of rest.

You remind me of the feel of scented blankets.
Rough and soft,
All at once.
Florid but not too flowery,
Delicate in all the right amounts.

You remind me of lonely laundry men  
That long for a woman’s
Love and ironed sheets.

You remind me of home.

You remind me of food, lots of food.
Too sour for my 
Eyes to bear while opened.
Too sweet for my 
Belly to accept
And mouth to greet without
A smile.
Too spicy to keep
The sense in my ears,
And too plain at times.
Too blend for my body 
To comprehend.
But you know what they say…
You can’t eat the same thing every day.  

You remind me of God.
Sufis spinning round
And round with Him
Reborn in their faces.
Hajj traveler’s huge suitcases.
Pure Zamzam water,
And rosaries made of beads so green
That Mother Nature 
Bowed down to them.

You are my sudden leap of faith.

You remind me of sweet melodies.
Arab voices that pierced seas
And sunk ships.
Tunes that blurred out 
Whatever notes in this
unjust life that made no sense to me.

You make sense to me. 

You remind me of Lebanese mothers.
Molding poetry with their
Own hands while making Kebbeh.
Collecting the burdens of the world
In small glass jars on their
Kitchen shelves,
While chopping greens with
Knives made of War
That chopped their
Homeland’s greens. 

And no I will not forget.
I want to stay this way;
Happy with my grief,
Wearing it around my finger
Like it was some sort of
Wedding ring I wanted to show
Off to this unjust world.

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