poem by Golrokh Maleki

[golrokh Maleki]

Shadows and walls

We're people isolated in an abstract world

And we hear others only through a wall

We cannot judge everything through senses we have

We can just guess what is happening in the hall.

What we think we know of people is

Something shallow, blur, virtual

We hope they will teach us freedom

But soon we're caught in their ritual.

When we touch the shadows around

We'd like to call it a vision

But the saddest thing ever is when

We cannot love them without permission.

Then we begin smelling what people are

Cool and fresh, kind and caring

Before our sense has time to bloom

Winter comes, with no reason for hurrying

We rely on tasting and enjoying their eyes

We drink their love and sadness 

People start tasting yours, but

They can't digest this madness 

It's time to sit and touch our own hearts

Isolated and happy, it's a deal

People can't be smelt, touched or tasted

We should learn to love ourselves, to heal

We're people, shadows of each other

We "think" that we know and share

All we do is feeling "abstractism"

The moment we love ourselves is rare.

It is unpublished

~*~

Golrokh Maleki, Iran

— Born in 1983 in Tehran, Iran, my parents were nurses when the war broke out in Iran, and I know what it means to be caught in horror. I have been teaching English for many years in Tehran, and I know many good hearts in my classes for whom I like to make the world a better place.

~*~