For you, Vava – Gitan Djeli

For you, Vava
Our illusion in five acts

––        Thank you for opening the universe, Muthe
          It is the cosmos that aligned our planets, Vava
          Particles of a grander universe
          we are atoms of the same molecule, sparks of the same life
          tramping away our mortal bodies
          Like the dragonflies we imagine on the beach

––        Dragonflies have existed in the myth
          of our togetherness, my pearl
          when we stare in the depth of the horizon
          we see the souls of our ancestors
          manifesting themselves
          But I worry, what if we fall in the abyss?

––        Haven’t we already, Vava?
          the intimacy and the distance
          the brokenness and the madness
          the voices in the nightmares
          There is nothing left of our lucidity
          except your anxiety of introspection

––        Like Hamlet, I am tormented
          and the darkness of my past awakes
          the meaninglessness and the delusion
          I feel the kiss of Death on my forehead
          and I can’t sleep away my fears
          We have to part for the sake of my sanity

––        Cruelty is your pathological condition
          you speak from privilege
          and close the universe with such brutal honesty
          but I can’t be Ophelia and
          drown in the disillusion of our folly
          Let us be for another life, maybe.

Gitan Djeli is a London-based Mauritian writer and researcher in cultural studies. Her poems appear in Adda, Poetry, Amberflora and in the anthology We Mark Your Memory by Commonwealth Writers.