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No matter the rush of undertow 

everything else is still 

here. I scrawl your name 

at the bottom of the river 

I sing it and it sings me 

back. What I’d give for a name 

so keen     it whittles 

the valleys of my neck. I’m forever drenched 

in this night, and you 

no longer exist. The river catches 

the sky’s black, ink 

meant to preserve a memory. I stay 

because it’s easy. Here. I relive 

what you did to me, find myself again 

in the water - swollen and sullen 

as a bruise. I trace 

and retrace, graffiti

every river’s bank, drown 

into ecstasy 

instead of moving on with my life. 

I wear what you did to me 

like gills, a new way to breathe. 

I jump into the river 

for days. I forget I have lungs at all.

Noor Ibn Najam