The Vacuum (for Ayderrah, February 2021)

 

The Vacuum

When teacher recites the poems for her dad,

I can't help but feel the vacuum inside her heart...

And why not? I, too, have that hole.

The difference is mine is more hollow,

more concealed.

I, too, have that hole

Deep inside the crevice of my heart and soul,

For that figure that I have lost in the distant past.

Teacher is lucky, she knew his face;

Teacher is lucky, he appeared in her dreams.

How unfortunate I am!

I never had dreams about him,

For that figure disappeared in the vacuum,

And that vacuum has taken all the memories.

The vacuum is forever empty...

Forever yearning,

Forever dreaming,

Forever wishing that vacuum has never taken the figure...

Teacher is lucky, she has the vacuum inside her heart...

Teacher is lucky, she knew what was there even before it existed.

How unfortunate I am!

For the vacuum is just a mere vacuum...

A receptacle of things that I have not.

Teacher said she is daddy's girl.

For crying out loud,

I am my daddy's girl!

But nobody knows that.

And no one will ever know...

The things that I have been hiding,

The things that I have not been showing.

They will always be there... in--

The vacuum.

(For Ayderrah, February 2021)