THE WORLD IS BUT TWO WORLDS // WAFA AL-ALAWI

The sight of your sole presence sends me into a deep condition of paralysis
And the smallest one of my particles becomes struck by you
And I move into a realm of silence that is disturbed by your short sentences
Silence takes over the room, the house, the town
And I swear, sometimes ..
I cannot even hear my own heartbeats
Buried under all of these layers of the things you make me feel
And I wonder if my living corpse has stropped breathing

My voice
It trembles in my chest
It moves up then goes down
It travels through dark cities and many winters
Failing to reach you
It moves up and goes down to die away
And my lips are hot, chapped and shut
By the realities and the rugged distances that keep my existence away from yours
The thoughts that fight each other in the depths of my skull
Are the only activity left in my world, my science, my anatomy
And I wonder
I wonder
What is it in you that hardens the tenderness I have for you inside of me?
What part of you has conquered all parts of me?
I wonder if the world we live in is but two worlds
One for you and I occupy the other
Kept from you by unreal borders of reality
And I wonder
I wonder
And I fall
I break and I am buried
Under the helplessness of my situation
My dainty exterior, my faulty interior
And my anxiety
And I wait
In my chair
I wait and wait
For you to touch me.