Listen to Abdulsalam A. Sh. read “Seven Days”
Day 7:
My mind is floating somewhere
between time and space.
I can’t remember
the last time
I touched my lungs,
the last time I talked
with my consciousness.
Every day I bite
my tongue
just to remember
I’m alive
Day 6:
My body is tangled in a bed
My veins are connected to a long wire,
dripping.
A maze of grey walls and blue curtains
Surrounded by whispers,
familiar voices
and unfamiliar hands
Day 5:
Everything feels out of motion today
The train, the sun, the clock, my legs
I reach home, rain myself and sink myself in bed.
I wake up in the middle of the night
and sleepwalk towards a fainting light
Day 4:
I’m having my morning coffee
with someone I barely know
I read out a poem
that I wrote a few days ago,
He doesn’t say a word
or listens to anything I say
Day 3:
I get rid of yesterday and tell myself:
Today is a great day
the sky is clear
and the haze has faded away
I go to work,
Free of all the poisons
of all the thoughts
Day 2:
Where has everyone left?
Who ripped off the windows?
What’s that blackness on the walls?
And why are the owls
hovering over my bed?
I do not know why
but I know how
A voice echoes in my head
How whales get devoured by the sea
How castles collapse by a sting of a fly
Day 1:
I’m writing a poem
about the temporality of flesh
and the immortality of words.
The doorbell rings
A person in black
stands in front of me,
uninvited.
I try to talk to him
He doesn’t say a word
or listens to anything I say!
He ignores me,
and he walks in
through the backdoor
of my mind
