brown skin
November 30, 2008
my love,
this song makes me miss you so much. how many thousands of miles are you away, traveling, somewhere in the motherland. the place we both got our brown skin. you say that each trip you make to india changes you, reminds you of our imagined hardships here, renews your love of our origins. i hope the tropical dew nourishes you, not like the cold oakland winds this time of year. when you return i’ll make sure to cover you in shea butter, i’ve been practically bathing in it lately, the air is becoming so dry. this weekend felt like summer during the days. it scares me that the seasons switch places.
it’s almost monday. ten more days without you, my love. my heart counts the hours down, i can hear it in my chest. ticking. can you feel the bones of our ancestors holding you up in that homeland? we’ve covered the earth over, it’s true, but we started somewhere close to where you are now. even the thick pollution of mumbai air, i know, can’t keep all the energy in the ground. i hope you are relaxed, dear one, i hope your soul is refreshed by that presence.
when you come home, when you get back to oakland, it will have been more than three weeks since our last kiss. in a sense, time has stopped here without you. there is no one to love without you, no one to whom i can give myself, no one i want to touch. it’s during your absence that i feel this lack i can only celebrate because it means that finally, we have found one another. all the little terrors of everyday life, the dangers of existing are more difficult to bear without you here. i must have been more used to them before i met you. the knowledge that life is temporary, momentary, won’t leave me. what if even a lifetime together isn’t enough? twenty-two days without your hands, your lips, your eyelashes, your touch–the unthinkable has arrived.
it’s nearing midnight and i imagine you waking up from your deep sleep. i make a cup of tea, pull a teabag from the paper bag inside a box with a striped bengal tiger on the front. the body of the tiger is lithe, its black markings slashed over orange and white hair. in the background, the leaves of a palm tree, a brown woman in a sari walking a gourd of water down a dirt road, tall reeds flanking her moving body. in the foreground, huge bowls of the nutmeg and chicory to be ground into the chai. Bengal Spice, that’s the name of the flavor.
my love, i am waiting for your voice, your words, to reach me again.
until then,
your goondi
© 2008 tahminah zaman
