I remember the oddest things.
Like the box of knick-knacks in our attic of private jokes
Your pseudo lactose intolerance that extended only to cheese
Your choking on your first cigarette
The intersection of our arguments about gods and nature, your chameleon
world-view positions performed for the audience
Your mascara painted lashes, reciting Anthony and Cleopatra and
getting the words wrong
pouring the sugar on the table without a care
the fear that youth was fading. Eating my sandwiches.
I remember your upset stomach after the Chinese buffet, and the
migraine that tortured me throughout your father’s funeral. Not making the bed.
Driving to the coast without a plan because the sea would tell us what to do
Leaving dog ears in my books and your inability to not understanding
why I wouldn’t want to talk to you after that. Having cornflakes for supper,
and the poems we picked up in a jumble sale of jumbled dreams
Your smiling across the smoke in Soho, your turning Sufjan Stevens into a
a lunchtime debate, my dislike of your friend with the big, unkempt hair, your
Velvet Underground & Nico t-shirt. The horror of toe nails painted in different colours.
Your brother’s shoes that he never picked up. Magazines cluttering our crowded space. Knowledge,
that we tore out from our dissatisfaction with the norm.
The Tree That Grows Forever at the end of our street.
Your questions about shooting stars and constellations, and that
Marvin Gaye song, after he had heard about it the same way as I.
Songs we sang as the moon rose on the ocean. Attempts at Shiatsu. Parking
the car at the absolute edge of the cliff. Leaving the door ajar every time you left me.
Memories we select for lack of shelf space.
I never can remember the end though. Vaguely, my head floating like the
aftermath of a rock n’ roll party – everything everywhere, lipstick marks, clothes
half- hanging in the wardrobe, coffee stains,
unfinished books on the garden table, marble coloured flip-flops,
pieces of torn photographs, the first lines of a new verse,
prayer beads, Chopin, Ravi Shankar and
the Greatest Hits of Sony and Cher.
I remember the oddest things.
NOORMOHAMED 