By Fatema Aftab Miah

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Somewhere,

my friend elbows his way through a crowd

to find a place –

he does not know if this place exists,

he only knows that he needs to get there.

The flowers are wilting, he says,

I have not watered them in so long.

He reaches into his ribcage for a map

that he swears was right there.

There, right next to his rickety heart

that stills under his fingertips

like a child who cannot tell the difference

between a brush

or a strike.

He cannot find it.

He is frantic and sweaty and disoriented

and he bumps into too many people

but none of them notice that

he cannot find it.

Somewhere,

my friend is keeling over –

he is trying to catch his breath.

He has looked everywhere:

in windowless houses and rain-soaked bricks,

over lonely bridges and lonelier people,

between the lines of poetry and unnamed graves

(what is the difference, anyway?)

It used to be easy to find, he tells me.

His voice is strained by all the words

that have died in his throat.

I know, I tell him

as I refuse to meet his eye.

I know.