The prophet

Today is the prophet's birthday, you'll be home late.

You are exhausted. I am learning Arabic and every night you come home exhausted. I cook dinner and    

          run words through my head. Sounds tacked together that I can't remember which mean what and  

          when to use them. Yaktuba, taktuba.

It has been a year now since you were sleeping in the car waiting for the storm to pass and I was a     

          thousand miles thinking of you and watching fourth graders dance. Some have so much 

          energy it seems they could never get tired- they could run on and on away from me.

I listened to the prophet, his profile hazy and purple, on the CD player as I packed for the trip to San 

        Francisco, tagging along with my mom on her business trip. At fourteen, it was my first time on a 

        plane. 

Baab is door - my first word that I can write. My first time knowing my own handwriting as beautiful. 

        This word goes back and erases all the notebooks I filled during nights spent sitting next to my dad 

        at the kitchen table practicing each letter over and over again. And my dad, with the messiest 

        handwriting I've ever seen, hoping to undo something of himself.

I packed my rust colored pants made of parachute material, elastic cords at the waist and ankles. I'd 

         worn them the night the night before when some boy told me he loved me in a basement room 

         with four other people around, and told me not to leave.

Some letters let themselves run from one to another, exist as only a hiccup and slash mark, others will 

          not be joined; they will not let themselves be surrounded by others who are up to more.

I hope you never leave me.

I listened to the CD on my diskman and laid on the deck of the hotel. I tried to tan, turning from my 

         back to my stomach each time a song ended. I walked around the streets close the hotel. We 

         shopped together at Macy's - I didn't want my mom in the dressing room with me, and cried when 

         she passed me a medium over the door instead of a small.

At the school today we played leap frog. Each set of partners held hands first and looked in each other's 

          eyes. Say I trust you friend, I told them. They would say it, loud or quiet depending on the kid - 

          each seem to have a life already decided of shouting out or mumbling low. 

Say I will never hurt you, I told them. And they would say it. I barely hesitate at telling them to make 

         promises I know they cannot keep. Each takes a turn making a ball on the mat while the other one 

         jumps over him.

I promise you in the morning when I help you with your shoes that I will never leave you.

I help the kids with their shoes. I tell them to switch their feet, to loosen the laces, to push hard and do 

        their part, but some will not and I just put the shoe on for them.