13 years already           I think of you               when you’d waddle towards me           and I    sleepy-eyed      eager for the silver lychees in your palm            would reach out           the moon behind          a hanging canvas          a jilted lover                 shadowed under the sun’s hands          how often I’d stare up at it                        when I saw a goat slaughtered for the first time a dull silence floated around me           [______________]     when I kissed a boy for the first time               I heard a wishbone crack         [_______]       somewhere in the garden a bird stopped to mourn its kin         for too long I left my body out there                      waiting for the heat to settle                  dry out the flesh-less rind                     the shark-teeth wounds        then gathered the remains and walked back home         I have been trying to grow olive vines since       I have been looking for the swirls of your face since    on medjool dates   ginger roots         I think of you at every meal        the peaks and valleys of your veins         mountainous over the tops of your arms            twisting as you’d pour daal into my bowl          tell me how you married at 9       [_______________]     tell me how you learned to write            [_____________]       over and over the names of your loved ones                when you go       I will collect everything you have done and house it next to water lilies     watch it bloom by the pinks and greens            may it outlive me         may it root those who come after me                these days when I walk my veins pop and burn like fireworks over Kathmandu         there children are dancing to the coloured light              there a stray dog is howling                there you are saying your celestial prayers