Common Language
29.4.2022
Article by Barbara Billic Art by Emmaline Hawley
The cold lights cheeks red
Grunge hair, half painted nails
Performing less
For the first time since Zambia
Real rest, drooling level rest
No clean sheets
No space on the bed
Sleeping on a piece of wood
My senses all mixed up
Listening with eyes
Seeing with my ears
So many foreign words in the hot air on 5th floor
No translation
Simple connection, simple invention, imagination.
Like we learned in class
They never let us speak English
At the street lamp post
The gazes as our only common language
I promise you, you promise me
Mainly you
“This is not it”
Out of everything I’ve lost on you since then
I don’t pity my sanity the most
I pity nothing that is mine
I only pity you
Your fear, your prison, your crystalized blood
None of it is me
I sang a song months ago
Where Amy says I cried for you on the kitchen floor
Like a baby crunched up in a ball
Out on the north side of the house with a fur hat on
My cigarette lights, freezing fingers red
Freshly cut hair on my bedroom floor
I’m singing a song tomorrow
Where Joni says We love our lovin’
But not like we love our freedom