Someone Like Me {Poetry}

Arms

   Nivla - that was what I decided upon.

Like water in rain, light in sunshine,

                      Simple and elemental.

           Too feminine, the others said.

Fine, I answered. I will conjure a better name,

           One fiery and strong, Nival.

No, they intervened. Better your real name.

But I could not use it. She would know.

                  She would know the instant

my hands grazed the paper, poised

to write my demands, that it was me.

She would know that it were my arms

                  that held her dreams hostage.

                                         ~ ~ ~

Arms - they determinedly hold the feeblest of pencils, drying pens,

just looong enough to write a history of the world in forty minutes.

Arms. They are long, magnificent, and tired. Wielders of a subtler

kind of weapon, the dagger, which will puncture the night just as

certainly as Caser falls on the marble steps of Rome. Was it Rome,

then? Or was it just another fragment of reality, painted assiduously

so that it would resemble a familiar scene of betrayal?

              How to swim the abyss

                              How to hold the sky

                              How to swipe the missed

               How to cradle the eye

Arms - they yearn to scale the Earth, lithely and swiftly, with few

gashes from the wilderness of Asia. They expect to grasp the vines of

a jungle, the ragged face of a mountain, feel indirectly the steam of a

savannah. They cross and morph anticipations. They are human, more

unique than the opposable thumb, because without arms, there are no

hands. They remember times when it seemed that the rest of the body

would collapse, pitifully, into sounding thunder. They float in the salty sea,

propelled by buoyancy, just as air.

               How to battle the night

                              How to embrace the rain

                              How to combat the light

               How to envelop your brain

Arms - they are the final frontier, not because there remain issues to be

redressed, but that they are the only solution to the human condition.

And what is the ultimate condition? To remain unbalanced, long for

bionic limbs, wish against war explosions and shark shadows, and struggle

for normalcy. With rushing clouds, there are cuts of stars dragged

by the arms of the rain.

                  ~ ~ ~

No, I muttered. You do not know me.

Yes, I do she answered. I understand

that you are endangering my every

pursuit of freedom. She stood up,

                    tied my arms, and left.

The wind howled, but the world

                                        fell silent.