FORGIVE ME by Paraschiva Florescu

The poem starts by describing the beauty of a woman dancing...

It describes her hands, her face, her delicate wrists. She is not scared, and she does not need anyone but herself. The speaker, who is watching this, is invited by the beautiful woman in a “chimeric dance” and soon the speaker falls in love, only to realize that the beautiful woman is actually herself. The speaker finds a deep love for who she is.

Forgive Me

by Paraschiva Florescu

Out of her palms birds spurt out,

a pleasing pitying of turtledoves

and when she dances, the threads, thinly etched on the white skin,

paint the air with delicacy

and fate - irregular contours growing towards north, east and south

and west

and everywhere else.

Her wrists rise up and the blue roads under her skin traverse up

and down

carrying a red life of cells hope oxygen love.

The earth is slightly tilted dragging its hurried souls

down down. But she is not scared of falling or of darkness.

Her body swirls and drops

like a pen scribbling some inked poetry.

Piano keys white black, an imperfect symmetry,

wield her small and incapable fingers

yet capable of shaping his world and hers -

she is a sculptor of happenings.

The notes expand like balloons and a new story

grows out of the music.

She now knows: nothing will dissolve her scars

and wipe the blood off her feet

but her own hands.

No cursed mouth of a strange man will mend her. There is no need

for compassion.

She offered her narrow neck to the sea,

her eyes to trees, her skin compressed on the paths of mountains,

her arms, legs becoming branches, her mouth becoming leaves,

her blood

rivers.

She swallows her face that echoes on the surface of lakes.

The reflections of a woman entangled in unsought lives,

unchosen paths and lovers,

are gone. She asks for forgiveness.

The black hole that he dredged in her body

deepened each time she loved. She fills the hole with her own

breath.

She invites me in her chimeric dance - me, a broken

body full of cracks and faults. Her hands even my wrinkles

and my pain crumbles between her fingers.

Today, I fell in love so deeply with her.

My heart is bewildered at this indivisible love that only now was

found.

I no longer need you, or anyone else.

Today, I fell in love with myself.

*

(This poem appears in our new anthology on the Goddess.
Click here for your own copy. All proceeds donated to the Malala Fund)

Paraschiva Florescu: is a Law student at Edinburgh University, where she also organizes Kirtans and Bhakti Yoga sessions for the student community. Paraschiva is founder of the Krishna Conscious Society, after having graduated from a Kirtan course in the Radhadesh community in Belgium. She is a Bhakti-yoga practitioner, lover of poetry, martial arts, books and rivers, and - of course -the truth. Find more of her poems on her blog, where she publishes regularly. Paraschiva can be reached at para.skevi@yahoo.com.

*For submission guidelines, click here.*

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