By Naheen Taba

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From my birthday to yours, 

it was nothing 

but the two of us breathing fire 

for communication, 

and loving in shortened ends 

of broken emotional health. 

The love was real and raw, 

maybe that’s all 

there’s left to love 

about all that blood

that ran in the relationship.

This affair was abated 

and you didn’t have the patience 

to wait for the Pacific I paced in. 

I didn’t know how to show you 

how I was choking in my brain

suffocated by your rage. 

I don’t know who to blame, 

but the timing tamed our love

When it should have tamed our rage.