Ya’aburnee

Arabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

All that I know about love

Comes from my constant

Disappointment of loving you

In this language

English is a thing of economy

We are constantly short changing our tongues

Into Believing that less is more

That a text is enough to love letter our bodies into memory

That our first names are just barcodes of default  forced upon us at birth

My love,

If there is one thing I know about being born

Is that it keeps happening every time I wake up

Next to you and give you my first words before the sun resurrects

When I say, “Good morning”

It is because there is no word in our language

That means I am glad that some God woke up before us

And said it was right for your eyes to be the first blessings

I walked into at the start of my day

If there is one thing I know about death

Is that it is a concept this language knows nothing about

There is no word for me needing to leave  first

If your arms are no longer the stuff that I unclasp

Myself out of first thing in the morning 

English only knows of mourning or joy; life or death

There are no words for the way a chest makes room

 For your name at the start of a prayer

There is no word for the need to find your voice

In a pile of strangers in order to feel home

There is only, “birth”

There is only, “home”

There is only your name that makes sense of the morning