To Consecrate

When you first met me,
All you could see was a snow white glove
jutting up from the filth I let them bury me in,
digits half curled
wrist arced and carpels tangled
as if I had once strained
to reach up for something more,
but had long since given up...

Your fingertips were my Autumn
as I walked backwards through Winter-
A sleepwalking shadow
spurred on only by sound of a melodic voice
and the faint whispers
of a promise
that I was worth more than ash and dust;

It's been two years since you first coaxed me up from the mire.

I opened my eyes into a hurricane,
reached out to grasp at the hem of your dress
only to come up short
when I found
I was still chest-deep in the mud;
You slipped away between the raindrops,
Leaving me with one last promise:

"Follow me.
You can do this."

I put my hands to the ground,
pushed with everything I was-
Pushed till my ribs cracked,
my tendons tore,
till my arms snapped like rotten limbs
and I bled out from my eyes.

But I pushed.

The next time you saw me
I was up to my knees in grime.
It clung to me like a parasite,
wove itself in to my blood and bones
refusing to let go;
I was a walking contagion-
oozing sickness and toxicity,
sweating pain through my pores;
but you saw my sickly smile
and you smiled for me too...
That's when I decided
I had to keep going.
That's when I knew,
underneath all the stains and bruises-
I was still something beautiful.

It's been two years since I watched you walk away.


I am not the man
who would walk with you through the streets of New Delhi
picking through the same market we've gone to every day,
listening to the words of the same guru,
as if we were coming together for the first time;
I am not the man
who would watch the sun rise over Paris
through the blinds of our smoke-hazed studio
idly entangling his fingers with your hair-
fancying how he could capture this moment
with the pen perched between his lips;
I am not the man
who would erupt into joyous laughter
whilst he raises his age-worn stein
in a toast to how fat and jolly we've become,
discretely reaching for a third helping
over the plates of our children's children;

I am still wading through the muck,
trudging out of the bog of this city.
I am ocean bound,
set to wash away the last of this sickness,
aiming to leave behind
the garbage you found me buried in.
I am the man who will be.
I am the man who is becoming.

What I'm trying to say,
Is that I am not yet that man.
More than that, what I wanted to say,
What I've been dying to tell you-
Is that I'm glad I got to see you again;

Because I've been wanting to thank you
for introducing me to myself.