Borders

Because they have decided it would
be good for me to grab some air.
I step outside my hands
spread out like an atlas,
the compass of my pearly white
body spinning, grappling
between the air and gravity.

There is a darkness that settles on my eyelids,
like a border between two countries,
running throughout my palms
with bus timetable veins.
I am met with fragile stares,
another office girl looks
on at me as if I am mad,
and maybe I was before the end of this journey.

Now I am steady again,
this is the gift of language.
I pick the right verbs and you disappear,
I revert my tongue to another side of the Atlantic
and speak only with your shadow.

Perhaps only travellers can love unconditionally,
honestly flagging up the scars from their past
leaving them behind in the time difference.
I want to be a million miles away from here,
where I can sink my olive skin into disappearing
across the border of our two bodies.