The World, Hands, Thank You, & Keep
Poetry by Kaia Hossain
The Battle of Love by Paul Cezanne, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
The World
I’ve spent a brief lifetime
trying to figure out how the world works.
I’ve spent a brief lifetime
understanding that it doesn’t.
That day when I shook the sand
off my loose black t-shirt at the beach
eyeing the water as if it owed me something
as my friends passed a beach ball back and forth
like it was on fire, I felt the world staring back at me
telling me I still had time
to make something of this.
Oh, Unfinished Girl, it would say, it’s more
than what comes out of that mouth—
that universe-slit, that reverse coin slot.
I spend most of my time praying and dreaming.
I’ve never prayed to a god. I’ve always dreamed of one, though.
I dream of people, too. None of them are cops. None of them are
finished either.
I guess what I mean to say is
the world never made enough sense to me.
And that black t-shirt hasn’t been touched
since that beach day, but if I shake its sleeves,
a grain of sand might fall
to the ground.
Hands
I believe that there are stories lying belly-up in the palms of our hands at all times. Stories of hope and death and trauma and love. Of being, of place. Of loss, of life. Of that one time I told Clarissa I loved her, the stars splintering into incandescent shards in the cold evening winter, a sprawling map of shadows shifting like trees on the pavement, a profound sadness staining my tongue—depression curdling under the heat of the words I love you as the sentence left my mouth. I think these words were some sort of prayer. I think I was hoping I’d utter them and a weight would be lifted off my chest and neck; I thought the weight would turn to wisps of gold-flecked stardust and evaporate into the crisp night air. Instead, I said my prayer—and Clarissa said hers back—and the weight stayed there. And the weight stayed there. That story is sitting, now, in the crevices that line my soft upturned palm. That story, among many others.
***
I believe that when my palm touches yours, Jay, our stories get transmitted. However unclear they may appear—however messed up they may be from the failings of time and bruised memory. I think these stories help us understand each other a bit more. As if our hands clasped together were mouths with songs dancing off their tongues, the pink and yellow hue of music staining their teeth, bitter memories tasting a bit sweeter under the warmth of our fingers. Jay, I came to you a wounded thing. A bird that never learned to sing but always tried to. A bird who still hasn’t learned to sing but is still trying to. And I think each time my fingers touch yours, a song emerges from the back of my throat.
***
I believe that our stories could last, Jay. The sun is beginning to set. Summer is slowly fading into a soft and cool autumn—the kind of autumn that requires awestruck admiration as the leaves turn tender and pink as flesh. We went to the museum. We had ramen. I bought way too many books (seven, to be exact). You bought a comic book. You were embarrassed about buying the comic book. And now, the day is done, and we must go home. And now, we sit on this train that runs God-knows-how-many feet underground and a calm settles like dust as our silent gusts of gum-fresh breath meld with the warm urine-tinged subway air. As the sound of the train blares so loudly everything feels quiet, somehow. As we refuse to look at each other too long, like there’s a danger in too much understanding. As I hold your hand in mine as if holding a piece of a star that was crystalized by the heat of travel—as if the sweat from my palms could nurse your galaxy hand back to life like medicine. And you know, Jay, it wasn’t long ago that I thought I could be perfect. I really did. But I’m realizing now—stories patterned across my left hand in comic book strips and half-empty speech bubbles, fingers locked between yours as we wordlessly look ahead on this metro at five p.m.—that being perfect sucks. I’d honestly rather be here—somewhere where the heat doesn’t feel impossible. Somewhere where I’m writing even when I’m not.
Thank You
My love says
Thank you
whenever I kiss him
As if
it was a service
As if
I held a door open
for him
As if I held out my hand
on a fresh winter day—palm
turned up to the sky,
rays of silver sunlight flitting
through the snowflakes falling onto
our faces—and caught him
as he slipped on a thin patch of black ice
spotting the sidewalk
like a scab
As if I paid for his meal
and laughed and
offered to do so again
when I got a job or
won the lottery
and he smiled as if
it didn’t matter
as if no amount of money
could buy whatever was awkwardly holding
the shallow flesh of his bent index
and middle fingers as we shoveled a
moderately disappointing meal
into our mouths
with our free hands
as if a piece of God lodged deep within him
had finally started beating—
as roughly as a heart
as softly as a batting eyelash—
and told him to smile
and grab my hand
and move his thumb slow
over the bumpy unmoisturized base
of my ring finger,
his grin wider than the distance
between the devil
and his heart
As if to say
I have given him something
when I haven’t given him anything
other than a reason to look up,
see the door closing behind us or
see the snowflakes swaying downwards from the sky or
see the warm skin of our hands melt together
and think that an opening has been made
that a world has been conceived
Keep
An ice cube is lodged
tight in my throat and I must wait
for it to melt and evaporate
out of my esophagus and into the eyes
of some sky god before I can
hold your hands, palms damp and swollen
with memory, and tell you that
I love you
***
When my sister got a fishbone
stuck in her throat
I thought she might collapse,
her screams superimposed over
mucus and spit streaming
off her lips and into the
kitchen sink, my dad holding back
her long black hair as
saliva dripped off
her four-year-old tongue like
molasses
***
I told my dad I was trans and a pin fell suddenly out of my chest and onto the floor of our Ford Escape and a spider must’ve fallen from wherever it was hiding—it probably squeezed through an opening in my pores like a dog lifting the flap on a tiny door with nothing but the sheer volume of its presence—and fell into the cupholder of our family’s Ford Escape I was so scared it must’ve been the spider I’d never thought I could afford escape and now I’m here—
Mom was always disappointed you were a boy. Maybe she willed this.
Kaia Hossain is a twenty year old queer and trans writer based in Montreal, Quebec. She is currently studying English Literature and Creative Writing at Concordia University. She writes poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction that is earnest, personal and warm. Her Instagram handle is @kaia.and.the.world