spoken word by orooj-e-zafar

​RE: “You will finally know why storms are named after people.”

I would perform story upon story for you
if you felt the worn soles of my shoes
the familiar way I wear yours. I would,
if I knew you could hear.
 
I will not ask you if you can hear me--
before sound is lost to the earth's atmosphere
it rises to become energy the universe can translate
into light-bulb revelation;
 
I know
you can hear me
 
and I know you choose not to.
 
Before you say I'll be a stage name to the next apocalypse
and I call you a poor imitator, know that it took my parents
two weeks of uninterrupted thought to conjure a name
worthy of my sake.
 
Storms make cameo appearances but I am cosmic
energy, resonating in your stirrups for decades
to come, even
if you don't know it yet. See,
 
rage you call Katrina, I call amnesty;
trust that you call fickle, I call battle-ready.
 
Name me a survivor and I'll write you
an epic till their last breaths and then some;
 
battles don't see the end of the night
 
and if you saw the ends of my fingertips
you would never run out of stories to read.
 
I would show you every strain in the bulk
of my muscles if I knew you were watching.
 
I would listen for the beat of your spine
if I knew your heart knows what it is to thaw--
 
if you called me a storm, I would write you a poem
only to show you
what aftershocks look like,
how the soles of your feet
hug the ground like fallen arches -
like bridges that never saw the fire
coming.

​✱✱✱

Orooj-e-Zafar is a spoken wordsmith from Islamabad, Pakistan who writes too many self-addressed poem-letters in hopes of salvaging her relationship with herself. She thinks she's getting there but until then, she allows herself quiet mornings with Troye Sivan and Perfume Genius. You can find her at:  http://www.facebook.com/oroojezafarwrites