The house I left is buttoned up tight tonight, its orphaned olive trees gone liquid in the wind. I’m a trespasser for even remembering.
***
A holy union, bread and zataar. Liquor turned to cataract in water. The night smiled down lopsidedly, and you said I would surprise myself. I should have told you – I liked who I was under your roof. Your kindness was like excess butter I licked from knives, even as the foundation, something older in the ground, said “out.” I should say now: If the war ever rolls over the border. It will be the fault of millions, but please don’t forget me among them.
The walls wait for the future, incubating air. Great beasts carved out behind them in mother-of-pearl disguise their feelings now beneath a layer of dust. Portraits look for reassurance and find only other portraits. Also looking for reassurance. Mirrors eat remaining light.
***
I won’t say “if” – everything is made of patterns, as you know. The veins on leaves draw trees, the history of tides curdles into pearls.
When we meet again, it will be in altered states. Maybe in the black embrace, the prodigal Apocalypse making it to town at last – and turning liberator, smirking at borders, feeding Revelations to starved passport readers. Maybe whittling down to a new denouement, strange bodies growing on top of us like bark.
You won’t recognize me, but I will flinch and ask a mute question of your hands, filled with groceries and children. Something inside me, something fleshless, forming a gap. Reaching in for the mollusk at the bottom. Pandora’s Box gone slick in my hands. All of the evils of the world are things she didn’t have the power to forget.
For Ali Khasawneh
Natalia A. 
Oh MY your words are beautiful. Read this once quickly, once slowly and then out loud.
Thank you for tweeting your latest podcast appearance Natalia!! I would love to respond on Twitter, but I am of course still blocked. I have discovered an interesting and intriguing pattern; you like to be on podcasts with two men. First Whitmore and Galeotti, now testosterone-driven Army men. An interesting psychosexual arrangement and one of the main reasons why you are my favorite among Putin’s subtle propagandists. You asking for ‘nuance’ and your attempts to make Putin less threatening by talking about insecurities are masterful especially when combined, I am sure, with those baby blue eyes and low dirty laugh. I always said there are reasons why Vladimir Vladimirovitch picks beautiful women to do his bidding. I wish more people would realize that how well you talk to men is the direct result of your obvious psyops training. You don’t fool us all!!
The above has been approved for the sheer insanity factor.
This is beautiful. So happy I found your blog. Thank you for sharing. ❤
Have you tried blogging or summarizing posts on patreon? (Patreon.com) You can get contributors to pay for your workd on a monthly basis. Then again, you’ve got donate buttons on your blog which do the same thing. However, patreon provides you with the hosting – so there’s a win in blogging on the platform!
Mirrors may eat the light, but they give it back just as they ate it – no excrement, only reflection!