By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

 

I was told to use my head

if I decide to love you

but that is IF, if the decision is mine

I know that it is not mine

because I told myself not to love you

and I still do, like I told myself

not to drink coffee, and I still do

like I told myself not to look in your eyes

and I still do, and I still do not see your eyes

even if I look, because I am blind

by the power of your gaze

so I look elsewhere to find them

and look as closely as a blind woman

would look for a precious jewel she has lost

that is under her nose, and cannot see.

 

I am blind, so blind

despite the fact that I see myself, a reflection

of your existence, your bodily existence

for which my eyes, and all my senses

are rendered senseless and without logic

speechless, mesmerized, immobile

beside your body, whose every flesh murmurs

with poems that float with….? desire, maybe?

the words are curling around my tongue

as your arms curl around me like an octopus

slithering, around circles and quiet corners

I have never been before, and I can see stars

among the corals, in new colors,

dancing before my eyes, in my utter blindness.

 

“You are dumb!”, they said, “and not just blind!”

when exactly, did I lose my brain?

Is it hiding under my nose

with the jewels that were lost?

Yes or no. yes and no. all of the above.

Please repeat the question, my own question.

I have become a moron, fast becoming an idiot,

unable to remember my own name.

You may think you are losing your mind but actually it is a step inward, of knowing yourself, what you are capable of, given all the constraints. Enjoy being blind, especially when young, take a chance at love, and if you commit a mistake, be calm, you have time to right a mistake. If it is a mistake, savor the pain, even the mistakiest person you are going to meet teaches lessons you will never encounter in ordinary experiences. Remember, you have one life, unless you resurrect, and you cannot be too careful. Be radical, to love is radical.

If you can love a person close to madness, you are certainly capable of loving your country with passion. Patriotism is love. Love revolutionizes from within. In characterizing the essential quality of the Pink Revolution, Randy David is right, “All hope is indeed driven by love, and that is what makes these new movements radical.”

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