In another life, in a faraway country on unfamiliar lands,
We are good friends.
I am not cursed to break everything I touch
You are not an arsonist who burns down the homes of those who love you.
Your voice is not the last cry of a child in an abandoned home.
When I shout your name, the answer is not an accusation.
This version of you does not shiver at the sound of my name.
There are no rules here –
No unfulfilled wishes, no conscience to stop me from holding your arm.
In this life, the morning birds wake us not to songs of mourning but to lullabies,
I wear coarse fabrics and I have curly hair
My body is still warm and when I reach for your arm
You say, ‘I am not going away.’
In this life, we work at a bookstore;
We drink tea and our cups
Do not drip grief from their sides.
After dinner, we walk through our street, often
Stepping on the whimsical marigolds fallen from
Our neighbors’ trees – you laugh at them and
I laugh at your laugh; merrier than the marigolds.
In this life, I am not a lost traveler on a path that reaches no destination.
I look up at the sky and the clouds are not shaped
Like axes destined to bruise me.
The sunflowers still bloom and your voice still knows me.
Here, I am free from the rope hanging from the tree.
I am not burdened by a glorious purpose –
I am but a simple man
(Among millions of others)
Who is not punished for the crimes he did not commit.
I do not knowingly walk into shameless crowds in
Hopes of blending in;
I am my own self,
Not too late for love and
Not too far from you.
In this life, I am unfettered by the sense of guilt;
I sit somewhere in a café with you by my side and a cup of coffee in front of me,

I remember what it feels like to live in the skin of a man who is not dead.
In this life, my house is not on a dirt path that ends in an abyss –
I am not a madman gripped by unreason –
I have not let my mother down
And I am not a stain on my father’s legacy
Here, your eyes and my home welcome me,
My hands are warm and my body has not withered,
My love is not lost because
I have not spent years turning strangers into idols.
In this life, my poetry is a serene song of a hummingbird, not a fist around my neck.
In this life,
I sit by the window and wonder that in another life,
I am a barren landscape in bleak midwinter
And you are a beautiful autumn tree
Neck deep in contempt for me.
And for a moment, I am frightened of what I could be
In another life.