Gift

by Tahani Almujahid

I was buying books, just one of them was for you, from that indie bookstore I walked by my first day there. I recognized the name of it from the picture you have on the fridge with your little brother.

It was easy to blame it on the weather if it meant that I could follow the wind.

For that reason, I entered, leaped in confidence, if by coincidence, I could run into you here. Even if I knew you wouldn’t be in “hell’s corner.”

I thought it would make you think of me, of this other planet you tried to forget. If I bought you this book, you’d remember its origin forever. I wanted to unravel your history. I wanted to write to you to understand me. I wondered what I would leave in a letter.

You moved to Ann Arbor that year, you knew nothing of that new city but you said it was better than here, better than that heaven on fire.

I thought that if I explained how this store hid behind the grocery store on the street I can’t remember, just across my hotel for those three days,

It would click, and you’d remember this place, some place you destroyed after your home went on fire. I have a theory of why you ran away after the burned-down house. You couldn’t make a new home. You wanted to start from scratch, sell everything that was left. I keep having dreams that you will erase me too. I want you to remember the times in your life before the blaze. You say you feel like you made yourself up. Are we dreaming now?

I want this book to stray you away from the dizziness. You say I always pry, and I can’t help it I want you to think of the child knocking his hands in the air at the streetlight. How much he

looks like your brother.