Shadi Eskandani

Burning Amber

We’ve walked hard together. Tripped all over each other and kept on walking. But how much longer will we walk this way? I love you like cardamom in cracks of concrete. Like dry earth. You love hard like I do. Maybe that’s our flaw. Because we don’t seem to get it right. I smoked a cigarette tonight, to honour everything burning inside me. I thought of last night and the many nights before that. I inhaled grief into my tired lungs. Too many years of it. Burnt/out. And where does it all end? It doesn’t. So I keep walking hard. With or without you. Exhausted limbs taking me somewhere that resembles home.