Poetry:
Do you know me? / The Scar / The Sign

Samaa Gamie
PhD Student
Teaching Assistant
University of Rhode Island
E-mail: samaagamei@yahoo.com

Do you know me?

"Do you know her?" they ask

"Do I know myself?" I say
"What is there to know?"

"Do you know her dreams?" they say
"Do you know her fears and hear her
When she screams?"

"What is there to know?" I say
"Do I hear her when she cries?
Do I mourn her dying sighs?
Do I care if she makes me alive?
What is there to say?"

"What is there to fear?" they say.

"What should I fear?" I say
"Is it her anger or is it my fright
That bleeds when I watch her grieve?
What is there to tell?" I say

"Is it only your fear, your anger and breed
that makes you feel you are the one?" they say

"Who are you to know, to feel, to care?" I say
"I am just a man with a broken flag
who whispers in the night.
I am what I am. I breathe; I scream; I dare
And know when to make you brake." I say
"I know what I know
That is what I am
That is the only one."

The Scar

"She kept her diary there," the young girl pointed at the drawer in my friend's room

She must have mentioned me, I thought
I went home and opened my drawer
I found new clothes, old clothes, and many notes

I know I never mentioned her
For years we've been friends
In ways odd and numb
We sometimes were as our dreams unfolded and died

I saw her lying cold and stiff
And yet I still could feel her breath
A scar or none
I could not see
Just the little face that once greeted me

"Have you read her diary?" I asked the girl
She smiled, puzzled "No one ever did"

I left for home and stared at the moon
I scrambled the faces for her smile, her eyes, her face
Even her hair that I touched and could not bear

She was gone in a breath I took
In the blink of my eye

I touched her face. I saw no scar nor did I feel her heart
I laid my hand on her hair
Like silky wires, it pierced my flesh

I could not move
My lips were sealed
I sucked the fading sweat of her gaze

She was always mine
And now I could not see her eyes and never see a scar.

The Sign

Last night, I whispered to the breeze
That all I had was just diseased
When he left and I had to bleed
alone in the darkness of my soul

My name baffles me
I belong in a place still unknown
To a world yet unborn
To me and to all

In my room, I sat
Staring at my desk, waiting for the muse
Wanting to change the news and make them see
I am here and yes I can resist

It was over that night he died
He was buried in the light
And took all the darkness from my soul
Or so I thought

Do I care if I end in hell? In a hole of fire and no sense?
But I have the sense and still in life I burn and bend.
Silent to all that I fear, oblivious to all that I hold dear
Till it flees one night

Fear has leaped into my tent
My face is muffled by my infirm intent
By the flying birds that burned
That fled from all that meant

My heart aches and my eyes bleed
From your womb, I was not meant to be
I was meant to kneel and be a dying breed

It rained today, the trees bloomed with all the green
The birds sang again and told of the secrets of the undead
The song that bears the dent of the soul and the sign of the son

It was all that mattered
To me, to them, I was still no one.
I was the loser in the bet, the fish in the net

Till the end, the loser of all that meant.

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------------------------------  Page Citation Reference: Gamie, Samaa. (2005).  AE-Extra. April. Available Online. [URL: < >. Created: 23 March 2005. Updated: --. Accessed: ]