Mayalu Press

June poem

Lately I’ve been living my life
outside, and sometimes I reach
for someone who will enjoy it for me
and then I realize that I enjoy
things for myself best.
Recently I’ve been happy.
These days I am not so lonely
because I am full with myself.
I’ve been thinking of people I love
and hoping they will join me when they can,
so we can enjoy things together sometimes.
Always it is me and my
beating heart and my soft, strong hands
and my weak eyes and my laughter
and the sun.

— Juni Kieri

December/ If I was made of stronger stuff

Now when I catch myself thinking of you,
I don’t think of the three meals I couldn’t finish
whenever we tried to make this work.
Instead, I think of the stump of a jacaranda tree that my neighbour failed to grow,
the one I walked past everyday
In December.
It lived in that park near the Granville underpass,
ten minutes from where you live now.
My bus would drop me off across the street and
I’d stare at the sickly stump in its golden hour,
It was wide enough for two.
I worked nights in a French place whose windows were covered in purple petals
bruised by the same wind that brought them here
whenever I saw them while clocking in, I would wish that I was eating jhol mo:mo
In the cold with you instead of picking berries or searing salmon by
a stove I’d scrub every night only to do it again tomorrow
And though I loved the work,
I didn’t like the time I spent away from you.
But you lived in Burnaby then.
If I was made of stronger stuff,
I’d call in sick
I’d sit on the stump
And I’d call you, ask you, shamelessly,
to make the commute anyway.
But I was always afraid of you
seeing how much I wanted that.
And I didn’t want to know what that meant.
So I didn’t say anything at all.
In my mind’s eye, you’re always holding
someone beautiful,
Someone who is comfortable being seen,
Sharing stories about friends and family
Who doesn’t go silent as smoke from sel roti and khapse
fill the room.
I don’t feel envy.
Only fear that one
day you’ll run into me
and I’ll have to say out loud what I only understood yesterday
When I passed by your place on my commute
Hello
I don’t mean to be a bother
it’s just that
now and then
I fail to fill an empty plate
and I catch myself
redhanded
thinking mostly,
of you.

~ Ekoro Tamang