Shadi Burhan
2nd grade-Nursing Department-TIU – Erbil
The fog machine danced quietly along the street today while I walked my body.
It crunched a haze into the air on the chilly morning.
People as inky spots were smudged into the distance; muffled sounds sprinkled here and there.
It saw through me like a flock of hurried birds painted through my broken glasses.
The moon gazes intensely at stars when they play in the middle of the night.
So I stop and watch, too. I listen and sense and touch, too.
People are busy all the time, having fun, getting lost, falling in love, dying at some point, talking to strangers, heads down to the smell of rain, chattering smiles, the sound of feet on wet paving stones, traffic, and dogs, umbrellas flying in the air, and fog.
It wraps around my gaze like a gray watermelon with gray seeds scattered carelessly in my mind. It rings in my ears in fermatas like a chapter to a distant story engraved in me.
They sweep across the streets like busy snails on their way to the feast of life.
Everything is used and needed, connected in a way, sometimes thrown off, sometimes seen as leftovers from many summers ago, but everything remains fully there, merely acceptance and a reason to stick around in this world. Beneath their skin and behind their darkened eyelids, a mystery that needed to be told and unfolded. In the half-filled paper, the lost ending waited to be understood. Edges sealed together yet fully apart. I have known that people can be gray seeds in a gray watermelon, but they could also be the ones who prey on those seeds. Sleeping on pillows of give and take, dream and make, build then break. There is always a picture from above the skies constantly singing about how minds and emotions always hold hands while I look away. Though I sing back and only hear my echo, I always carry this story. On this very chilly November morning, Through the fog machine And the broken glasses’ broken lenses, I continue my steps like the gray seed in a gray watermelon.