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Enchantress
You arrive like the first word
of a language I didn't know
I was born to speak—
the way you bite your thumbnail
when you're lying,
how your keys jangle
three times
before you find the right one.
That Tuesday morning glance
splits me clean:
before you,
after you.
*
Your laugh tastes like the last cigarette I never smoked—
bitter and necessary,
the kind of harm
I'd choose twice.
I follow your perfume
through morning streets—
vanilla-cedar, the scent
you wear like armor—
until I'm standing
outside your apartment,
realizing I don't know
your last name.
*
In my dreams, I have courage.
In my dreams, I knock.
But I wake to this:
your coffee cup abandoned
on my counter,
lipstick stain like a signature
I can't decode.
*
Today I saw you with someone else.
Her fingers laced through yours
like they belonged there,
like they'd been there all along.
Your laugh in the distance,
then her hand on your chest—
the world tilted.
I stood there watching
until a stranger asked
if I was lost.
Yes, I said. Yes, I am.
The world tilted.
I bit my tongue until it bled,
walked home tasting iron
and the salt of my own stupidity.
*
If you came to my door now,
you'd find only
the hollow
where hunger carved out
my name.
But I keep inhaling the ache,
this fool who called the echo
a promise,
who confused wanting you
with deserving you.
Tonight I'll practice
saying your name
like it's just another word
for Tuesday.
Copyright ©
Saeed Koushan
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