Let's Say

Dey 1394 · Dec 2015–Jan 2016

Translated from the Persian original.

Let's say you left to bring news, to come to terms with yourself. You took me and tossed me at the edge of your little world, and later and less often than the dishes that get moved around the house, you turn my memory inside out too. Let's say you wanted to do the right thing. Let's say you were here, what would happen then? Would the thoughts in your head have been different? Would I even have touched your head? I'd gone to a bookstore and someone recognized me, said, I've read you, and asked, how are you still alive?

I remembered you said you were leaving so that I'd understand nobody dies of this leaving; well, they were dead before it. Let's say I'm alive now, so alive that the reason for it draws attention and questions. Let's say I miss you and haven't deleted all your photos. My heart won't pull itself together; at night I run salt water through the cavities of my head. Everyone says scent fades from things, but somewhere in the passage of my breath there's the smell of your saliva; it seems your seeds are being sown in the parallel dampness around my nose. Let's say you've gone. Let's say you're that strong person with your own ideals and dreams in life, who builds no one else's dreams and stays the dream of others. Let's say you're very volatile, like ether. Leave your lid open and the city gets dizzy, but darling, it's your particles that are flying off; can't you see it's leaving you? Don't you remember how hard it was for us to gather in our bottles? I'm tired of the windows running reruns; how can anyone, in five hours of darkness, sleep and work and watch a film too? Let's say you left to find out and tell me as well. On New Year's Eve I lit a candle for you by the window and burned a little of the fabric of your clothes. You heard wrong, or didn't hear at all: I didn't say if you leave someone will die, I said if you leave, who will I die with? Let's say you left to bring news; you went yourself and scattered into space, so that no magic or science will bring you back into my bottle so easily. Storming off, you weren't paying attention, your hand knocked me and I spilled, I fell through the grooves of the table onto the cold floor of the house and for a day I stayed stuck to the floor, then I evaporated, so much that every corner of my body is some part of the house. No one I told my plan to welcomed it the way you did. I didn't want you to do anything, I only wanted us to shut the doors and windows so tight that one night we'd lose count of the hours altogether and it would be dark for twenty-four hours. You left to bring news; now I too have broken up into clouds like this, and to get onto the couch I have to move from several places in the house at once. You don't know how hard even this simple decision gets; you have to concentrate, and of course do your pills. Today, since early morning, I've gathered all of myself here so I can think of you and miss you. Let's say you left to bring winter and turn me into snow; what kind of winter is this? I'm afraid to open the doors and mix with the air outside and forget our arrangement. I thought maybe you'd come back again; it wouldn't be right for some part of me to have rusted against bare iron and for me to look a mess, let's say, today of all days. How much of you was left at the bottom of your bottle?

Download PDF