peppermint

peppermint has always been medicine for me. i dreamt about her. last night. this morning.

she looked the same as i recall from our adolescence, from our conversations that spanned central park, down manhattan, into brooklyn, and sometimes even onto the staten island ferry.

she was stunning, how i remember her, freckles like star dust, emerald eyes glowing like a jewelery shop in indian country in the grand canyon. she came in with  a friend to ammu n abbu's, gracing past the dignified dining quarters into the britannica library living room. her presence laid clear synchopation with the ancient mathematics of my folks. my mom held her like tomorrow, and my dad celebrated them like comrades from the days of revolutionaries in algiers, in calcutta.

we should marry, i thought. i should've stayed true to our promise, about if ten years from now, neither of us are married...

regrets. contrition. questions, second guesses. what-if's...

i was in the kitchen, the chambers of alchemy, where my mom made vegan dragon soup with the sorcerer's spatula, and a chai only known to rickshawallah's and university students in mysore, dhaka, delhi.

while they mingled, engaged in seamless conversation, abbu joking about the difference in arabic between her palestinian and her friend's morrocan, i held court in the kitchen, flashing back through our time together.

while i pondered weak and weary upon many a quaint and curious volume of our yesterday's lore - i noticed. his hand held hers. he looked older, solemn, beautiful in his grey hair and stubbles. she was the same - lucid, fearless, brilliantly present while clearly rooted in a billion years ago, in the earth and the stars.

they were leaving. her garb majestically flowing, while he walked beside her. my folks trailed, like parents, like villagers who walk their guests out the door, onto the street, into the clouds...

all praise is due...she left her medicine behind...truth...