Authority

I haven't done anything wrong.

(There are yards of understanding between you and I. Please. I wanted only evening. It was February and the flowers were turning nothing, they fell in clumps around me like clumps of ash. I suffered. 

It was a misunderstanding.

(Stop, I said, stop. Please. For what have I done to make you unlove me? Sadness forgot me and departed, I steeped myself in memory where he and I could not be lost.)

Where are you taking me?

(He said, forever, toward forever. I said please, anywhere where you will be and his hair was not the ash of the dying flowers, falling from the trees like grave dirt which ran into my sockets and bled down my cheeks. It was February, the month of my sister’s birthday. I could have forgotten.

Am I under arrest?

(He led me to the forever and said now, you can open your eyes. I opened them. There was so much tiredness within me. We'd walked for at least 200 miles. Once I leaned against him, unable to carry on, and he pushed me away. He said don't grow weak, or you will be forgotten. And I refused to become his past. And thus I had the awful understanding of forever.

I am an American/Australian/British/Canadian citizen.

(What are you to me but a body? He said, what are you to me but somewhere I can claim? Let me mark you, he said, draw closer. I couldn't simply walk; I dove. )

I want to talk to the American/Australian/British/Canadian embassy/consulate.

(I forgot it was my sister's birthday. I forgot the way we used to run, when our feet were small and I had softness still in my cheeks. She told me, will you write to me when you arrive, I said I don't know, she said my birthday is —————. Whatever you do, don't forget my birthday is on ———.  )

I want to talk to a lawyer.

(My world grows quiet, like a river freezing over. It is not silent. It is just a muffled scream. It's not enough that there is debt. My sins require labor, repetition, expedition, perfection. I must learn how to solidy more quietly next time.)

Can I just pay a fine now?

(This is a form of currency: my words leaving my mouth and entering your ears. Forgive me for not knowing just how steep a suffering I owed. Everything inside of him is borrowed, and the borrowing he did from me. Please allow me to grovel. Feelings seize themselves inside of me, and they don't wake up).