Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Nobody’s Witness” by Roukia Ali.

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Nobody’s Witness

By Roukia Ali

Returning home in the midnight hour, in the city I am scared to love.

Light brighter than an angel’s wing leaks onto the subway platform.

Body-glitter-bedazzled crowds pouring in from Lorde’s concert weave

Lyrics with laughter that could shatter peach pits. Become nobody’s witness.

Stitch the wound of silence closed with an earbud wire before memory’s blood

Wells up the picture of myself at age eight, Lorde at sixteen. Dancing in Dad’s

Backseat, believing in never being knee-to-knee with anyone unwilling, unable,

Unpracticed in the matters of my heart, its ill fit behind my ribs.

Truth is, I turn being twenty over in my hand like time’s fruit, juice dribbling

Down my chin—pray that I become someone who sticks or otherwise recedes

In drops. In the city Mom refuses to love, I run to Dad from Kennedy station,

Passing over him like a bird’s shadow glides over a leadened grey stone. Listen

To his heartbeat to forget my own. Seek the rest of my life blind in the traffic light.

Mom warned me about nights full of teeth. Told me, “don’t undress for the bite.”

Take nobody’s advice. It’s a stinging melody you already have memorized.

In my head, I do everything right, I do…

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Copyright © Roukia Ali

“Roukia Ali (she/her) is an award-winning, multi-published Canadian-Comorian writer. A high distinction graduate of the University of Toronto’s English and Creative Writing programs and a current Creative Writing MFA candidate at the University of Guelph, her work has been recognized both here and abroad by publications such as Young Voices Magazine, DreamWorldGirl Zine, Vellichor Literary, Aster Lit, Sontag Magazine, and many more. Roukia’s favourite Lorde album is “”Melodrama.”” Interact with her on Instagram @roukiaa9140.

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