Kash Baloch — Poetry on Identity, Love, and Survival

You change states  like a magician. From fire to water,  then back again.  I feel you in the air,  you ground me, like the Earth.  And then you vanish.  Poof! In a cloud of smoke  you disappear  and leave me reeling.  That is when  I started  searching  for you.  Dancing in the moon's shadow,  I retrace my steps.  The light from a single black candle  casts a glow on my intrigued face.  My breath steadies,  my mind's eye  replays pleasant memories of  us together.  I would look possessed  to an outsider, but you.  You are inside me.  Only you see my concentration.  Devoted like the congregation of some old, unfamiliar church.  You become my religion;  I worship at your altar.  Prostrate at your feet.  Suddenly, the smell  of sage fills the room...

At half past five each Friday,  Samuel keyed-in his security alarm's four-digit code,  closing his office for the weekend.   He tightly clutched his  chestnut leather briefcase,  before hurrying to catch  the first train home. Conceding to the defeat of his  heavy-framed tortoise-shell  Armani glasses  while they  cut into the bridge of his nose; Samuel unlocked his apartment door,  greeted Madge, his cat,  and then kicked off  his alligator shoes. It was no secret at work that he was gay,  but their jaws would drop if they ever found out  he spent his weekends dancing in skin-tight dresses,  as a British woman named Samantha Fox.  Samantha had existed just as long as Samuel had known that he was queer.   She came to life, one magical day when he  looked in a mirror but instead of his reflection,  she appeared.   He turned up the speakers...

Broken down, like cardboard boxes. You break me down, it's poison; toxic. No matter what I do I can't get over you just give me the cold shoulder. It's freezing. I'm Arctic cold. You broke my heart of gold. Shattered it like shards of glass, had me crawling through crab grass. The pieces;  my pieces  are all scattered. You paint me with the same brush, as the rest,  like I don't matter. I'm slipping away now, like a cartoon banana peel. Your words cut me with their logic, though you're yet to ask me how I feel. Granite countertops,  and ceramic tiles, fill our household,  devoid of smiles. They laughed and said  I'm from a broken home,  little did they know, I am all alone. A father? I've only known daddies. The ignorance hurts me quite badly. You reached out, a single arm, like it was a token of your chiseled charm. This paint is dangerous,  the asbestos in these walls cause me harm. Daddy issues now,  at ne...

Find me where the cacophony of sounds meets the deafening silence. Devoid of noise pollution, where our bodies do the talking. Search for me in the unbeaten drum, I hide in guitar strings that have yet to be plucked. Most evident in the pregnant expectation of an audience awaiting an orchestra's first notes. Where aria meets melody,  and where the beat tickles the rhythm; you will notice me dancing between the lines, like a whirling dervish, intoxicated. I am in the sighs, and the frustration, every exhalation between lovers in a spat. There is much of me in their reconciling, in the fire that rekindles their romance. Listen closely and you will hear me,  in the few moments of silence  before the birds arise. That is when I am most serene, when I feel as tranquil as the sun  that is about to fill the sky. At the bottom of the ocean, where it is eerily quiet, I can be heard singing with  the whales who break the intimidating silence...