YOU SAID ... (Rasamindrakotroka Andry Tiana)

You, whose voice—now distant, now near—
Disturbs my nights like words of farewell;
Each phrase becomes a quiet prayer,
That draws me close, yet casts a spell.

At dawn, you speak as though unaware
That I still listen through the haze;
Your wounds—another story there—
Dismissed as trifles, lightly phrased.

You said, your eyes turned far from mine:
“I’ve lost the thread of what was right,”
Words left suspended, undefined,
Awaiting answers in the night.

You judge, without a single sign,
My deepest truths as mere disguise;
Like bodies lost in borrowed wine,
You strike—while I defend, arise.

We were not shaped from common ground,
Nor born beneath the selfsame skies;
Yet love, through storms that roared around,
Still sought to bind our lives.

The fruit still guards its hidden core,
The ancient tree its living crown;
And love, though cast in dust once more,
Still grows—though tempests press it down.

RASAMINDRAKOTROKA Andry Tiana
25 May 2023
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