The Moon is a Stranger

Tonight I will not speak of the dark world;
I will not speak of the light either.
Tonight I don't want to count the
number of poems I have written,
Or killed,
Or wasted;
I will not speak of the poems I have
breathed and lived through, either.
Tonight I want to sit quietly,
Talking to the lonely moon that always
accompanies me.

I am done talking about:
The damned beauty,
The doomed lovers,
The crippling hunger,
The devastating war-
And all that strips off the humanity of
the humane.
I will not speak of his leaving me in the
middle of the highway,
Nor will I complain
How badly it had hurt my bare feet,
Walking all the way down to home, alone.

Instead I want to give tonight to the
confessions and apologies.
I am sorry for not giving few minutes to
the homeless stranger playing flute in
the subway.
I am sorry for scrolling down my phone
when the helpless child was selling roses
to cars stuck in traffic.
I want to speak of the mother who
nurses her baby at a corner of the
restroom,
Who, I thought, is unaware of the
patriarchal politics.
I am sorry for not understanding the joy
of motherhood.
I want to speak of the unthinking
conformist,
Who never questions and always
remembers to forget,
Who waits in the queue for metro tickets,
Struggling to get through 9to5 office.
I am sorry for being too privileged not
to notice his loads of responsibilities.
I am sorry for for not being honest:
I didn't love him either,
I just loved the idea of being in love.
I am sorry for bringing down the moon
and trapping it within letters,
Refusing to accept the strangeness of its scars.
The moon was supposed to be a stranger.
It is, still...