Yasmin Afshar

 

Disappearance

 

I am disappearing

fragile

breaking down

under the weight of knowing

what is going to happen?

 

I am disappearing

falling down

the anticipated decay

a fissure that lasts –

in the painful forest there are mostly shadows of the past

and a faint fingerprint  who am I? 

 

I am scared of heights

the façade slowly disintegrates

our spinning bodies are moving too fast for the eye to catch

collapse

Fire: destroy and animate me!

 

When I listen to the music of the deep forest I hear the sound of losing my frame, losing my structure. There is no origin anymore, no point of beginning. The alpha and omega is everywhere.  I feel simultaneity, everything at once. Sometimes I am overwhelmed, and wish for a bit more linearity instead. I think from various directions. I read like an addict, and I rewrite what I read until the forest is even more opaque, like a rhizome.  There is no root for me: the origin and the beginning – is it a myth? Is there an origin at all? Isn’t this already imposed by ideology? Patriarchy and humankind’s striving for a holy father?  But what if it is not a myth, but I am moving too fast to get hold of it? Then, father, where are you? Father, my fatherland: I know you. I know you very well. You are angry and you are tired. You seem lost in your own forest, and I am too late to disentangle you.  I am home, always at two places at the same time, home is everywhere I am. Staying in between I enjoy to look left and right, back and forth – to see both you and the path in front of me with the sweet eyes of my childhood. Distant and yet present. I feel, I smell, I taste the cherry flavor of those times on my lips as if it were just now – a light red, a light orange, a dark reddish orange, almost every nuance of the color red is reserved for you only.  We sleep on top of the city. There is no light, just humming and chirping. We catch roaches with bare hands and put them into jars. We take them with us, everywhere we go, we laugh and are happy that they are safely stored. At night the other roaches crawl into our bags. As if they were to say: “Take us with you! This place is so hot; we want to get away from here.” – “We can’t take you with us, you have to stay here. But don’t worry. The heat will be over soon. Winter is just around the corner.” Before the disappointed roaches leave the room they show us some of their performing tricks on the prayer-rug.

 Downstairs in the backyard there is a huge garden with a white house hidden amongst the cherry trees. A sky-blue fountain next to the entrance sparkles with water. The air is thick and heavy and only the water gives off some ease. I take a deep breath and step into the house. It’s empty. There is only a carpet on the floor. It is crowded just like a bazar: I can hear people bargaining over the price of bread and spices and now the smells also enter my nose. Our host is bursting with life and ready to take off at any moment to transport his visitors to the next city roof. Sitting on the floor we eat and count the cherries of the fullest red and each time we find one, it is already gone a moment later and we start over.

Now we are crossing the mountain pass, are on our way down to the sea. A moment later I am on a small boat, the coast is vanishing behind a veil of mist. Everything is shaking. I want to see you, but looking back, I can’t see you at all. I cry. And I am enraptured. Back on dry land I search for you – on the beach, on the streets, in the man-high reeds surrounding me. But you are nowhere to be found. Much later: you find me instead. On our way back to the ancient city groaning under the heat (we are still in the mountains) we are going fast on the winding streets: too many people for just one car.

I open the car door.