Poem For Shani:
I should never have known your name.
The love of the ones who held you in life
Was sufficient enough—
You didn’t need the love of a girl
Halfway across the world
Who, less than a year ago,
Wouldn’t have known you from Eve.
But I love you now
I gaze at photographs
Plastered across the Internet
And see my reflection in your eyes
I see a young woman’s joy
Shattered on the desert sand
Gifted hands made still
Never to create again
And raging, nauseating grief
Pounds against my chest and throat
Shocking me in its potency
I love you,
But it is a bitter love
A love I sorely wish
I did not have to feel
An angry, aching, impotent love
That chokes on incoherent tears
And longs for all the innocent days
When you were just a stranger
Her name is Shani.
She lives in the stroke of an artist’s pen,
The music of a pulsing beat,
The roots of trees and flowers.
She lives in the ones
Who feel the weight of terror
And still choose to dance
And extend an open hand to one another.
She lives in me.
And in you, as well,
If you will let her in.
Her name is Shani.
