Oh, it’s the living in the City

Here is a poem by Samina Tahreem, exclusively for Different Truths

You planned and you made it,
I am here ‘cause I never wanted to leave.

When I dream, I dream of you in the sun and the grass and your crinkled laugh under the
cerulean sky; when I dream I see me in yellow, not digging my grave.

I see us on top of lilac sheets, over the grass, in a Miyazaki haze—all passion and power
and magic and music—your hair red and I’m just me.

I miss you, dearly.

I miss my friends and my childhood.
I am living a life in the city.
There aren’t as many fumes as I imagined there’d be—I can still see the sky, Dearly.

There is some saving grace after all.
I feel like the dream has died and been replaced by something I cannot recognise yet.
I let the sunlight convince me that the dream was something else all along...

I am almost ashamed.

Dearly, I guess I am moving on?

I was riding on the Turtle’s back for so long;
I think I am ready to let the turtle go to sea.
It’s time Dearly, it’s time.

I hear no more thunder for once and Merlin, Am I happy for the quiet?

All these years I never prayed because I found it crude and I was trying to find my honour,
I was trying to find hope...
Now, now I guess I am a little more helpless and I need a little more hope...
I guess I am going to start praying now.

For you, for us, for God and the world that keeps losing it’s sanity...
I love you and I will always love you but I am saying goodbye now.

I will say goodbye to most things and I will start with you, Dearly.