Muna Hussen is a media planner and a writer. Regarding her motivation behind this poem, she says, “As writers, we are God. In our world, in the images created between the lines, we decide what happens. Who wins, who loses, who falls in love – who loves you back. This poem was about that and the juxtaposition one feels when the pen stops, and the computer powers down, and you are once again subject to life and others. Where often, you do not win, and sometimes, are not loved back.”

here, yes

by Muna Hussen

here is where I write you
there I lay you
on pages
lined or not

stretch you your limbs just so
shape your arms toward me
hands interlocked with letters making hold and touch
then your legs, they are just a few scribbles
inked into rhythm with my movements

your spine writ to another reality
shaped anew, curved into lay close to my syntax

I bleed into your veins miss and want

it is simple, to doodle them across your lungs
then, there across muscles I stencil my name, repeatedly

I fill your eyes with words soft

and I say, yes, here,
like this, that is how I want you
and not at all the way you are now

 Reproduced with permission.