Photo Credit Levi Forester.

My heart is Baghdad. My mind, Kabul. ‘Bout as long as bombs have lit the sky like music, the new national anthem; my mind’s been bursting with rivers of sound. Emotion, carried on rivers of blood. That rush through my head. That erupt, out my ears like a boombox. When little IEDs of memories get touched by your hand. Any hand. A voice, in a song. That carries all the feeling I lost at the outset of my life. I was a war baby. A just on the edge of post-Soviet baby. First memories, war. Second memories, soundtracks of chaos. Nothing’s ever been right since. Three decades worth of sound.

These are Loud Places.
Kabul, my mind.

I lean against walls in clubs. Trauma took me dancing. To get me the fuck out of my head. My mind is almost always shackled. But this wristband gives me entry. To tug on it, nervously. To lean against this wall with empty eyes. Searching. For someone. To take me to Quieter Places. Take me home. Strobe lights dart through that crowd. Cologne. Pheromones. Body Sweat. Co-mingling in my mind like little shouts. Be a part of humanity.

] jAMI

Try to clean my mind with shots of Patron. I can’t. And the lights, they settle on your face. I hear music in your eyes.

I rip off my shirt, and walk to you. I rip my mind out of Loud Places. Oh the depths, I fall into. Only matched by Higher Places I can go. I can take you to little worlds I created. In my neurons. To escape the chaos. Little mountains of ecstasy. I can make an orgy of feeling. Just by touching your pecs with mine. Just by running my hand through your chest hair. A smile that hides the calamity. A kiss, a nibble on the lips. That can whisk you to the top of that mountain. You’re a dark motherfucker, that music in your eyes. Little bombs like mine.

Maybe you’re Karachi. I, Kabul.
A little freer than I.

I might take you home. We might stare at each other under bedsheets. Rough and tumble. With intertwined feet, dance through each other’s minds. Our bodies. We’ll laugh at the sunrise. Tell it to fuckoff. As it shines light on the scars. As the light threatens all the freedom we were granted. By the anonymity of night. By night really knowing your face. Only imagining all the music in your eyes. That it was less than I hoped.

You’re Barcelona.
I, Kabul.
Much freer than I.

And you leave me. Alone. In the sheets. And I can’t follow you. You’re going to new places. And my head is Kabul. It’s three decades of the same sound.

15

Add to the story...