It was my stomach that failed me first.
In the backseat from the airport
the sick of raw carcasses, of rubbish
sweating in the humidity. And then my legs
buckling under me as I scaled a lighthouse,
watched a smoked sun set. My untouched feet.
All the steps I took away from you. I walked
through jungle, on dirt that has seen blood,
earth so thirsty it soaked the blood up.
Let handfuls of sand fall like a cloak
over the scales of skinned fish.
I danced in the rain at a stranger's wedding.
Flead a stray dog. Grazed my knees on ruins,
in a place where so much was destroyed,
and somehow came out on top.
I fell asleep on buses, dreamt through scenery.
Our guide explained the cows, explained
worship as necessity, as survival,
how thousands of years ago in the mountains
they were declared untouchable, their cud and
their milk and their life worth saving
because they in turn meant saviour.
He says, This means nothing now. I stroke their hide.
Later I fuck him quietly in his room,
my skin like spilt milk in the dull light.
Think, Touch me like I will always be sacred.
The next day I kneel down barefoot
kneel down with my head throbbing
in a holy place. On my way home
the taxi driver promises to mail my postcards
but bins them, or resells my stamps, and
everything I want to say is lost
or just never finds its way. I come back
and I am a year older, the customs man
stamps my passport and says happy birthday,
and my skin is darker
and you call me and you have missed me
and you touch me like I am sacred
but I am so far from sacred. I take your
hands off of me. I put them away. I cut my hair.
I should have told you then. It wasn't
that I forgot my body away from you,
but that it became something
neither of us would recognise.