And illness and fatigue stripped away
all of your capabilities.
Only the talent to dread left –
a barrier between you and the night.
We sat in front of the TV,
peeling the blushing transparent
membranes of the lychees,
under their thorny-like ginger skins –
another obstacle in reaching
their sweetness,
our fingers sticky,
not from the nectar
of our own bodies.
“Everything has a cover”, I told you.
And if you were to truly listen, truly,
like someone who didn’t know
where words would parachute him –
you would have known
this is what keeps us
from loving,
that I’m peeled,
unbearably bare,
on the coarse fabric
of the sofa in the living room
where we attempt to live
at whatever cost.
And if you can still identify me,
it’s only by my restlessness.