Something Has Come Through

Where have I been? they ask;
been so long silent maybe I’m lost
they wonder, yet do not say.
Have I been dying?
Ah, for so long, for so long now:
I’ve been dying, been dying
yet not in the way that you think.

Been hiding out in the Istanbul streets
soaking up the smells of ages, of sweat,
eyeing the eyes that eye you as you pass,
as they all carry experience in sparkling drops:
but I wrote nothing, nothing of it all
yet I never forgot.

Slowly bits of me have been falling away,
shreds, flakes, dead skin that peels and drops,
scabs of the old thoughts, scars of old liver;
yet I’m living on through all of this despite
the silences, the silences you’ve commented upon.

See, I haven’t been writing that much;
I know you’ve noticed the spaces between each word.
It’s not that I’m broke, certainly never broke,
I’m just absorbing every mark, spot, and smell:
and slowly, so very slowly, and in every way
I’ve been dying, been dying,
yet not in the way that you think.

So now amid this silence I raise my hand:
something has come through these Istanbul days,
yet I can’t quite give it a name, can’t name it.
It’s a sight that comes after being blind or a
taste that relays the experience of tasting rather
than just the word. All in these Istanbul days.

So now the hand says it’s time to change,
a moment for moving on, for moving on through,
as if need creates its own momentum. Not want.
Not self. I’m leaving you all now with these words,
signalling an end to the silence with these words:
I’ve been dying, been dying you see,
yet not in the way that you think.