Gallery — Run-on – sarah badr

Run-on
by Sarah Badr, 2004
75 x 68 cm giclée print

Enough

So it turns out
you knew
a lot more
than I thought
you knew
yet still this,
this thing
that is and isn’t
all in one go

So please,
just stop.
Just go

Go on,
get in on it:
the question
answering questions
questioning answers
to my question,
because it turns out
you know a lot less
than you think…

How soon?
Well, you decide.

Initially, this one
was for the hook,
with its churning
and unhealing,
miserably
desperate

Kept me awake at night
and I wanted to hate
cut off, let go
but No, No
Shit, no?
No.

So I empathized,
a midnight-mondo
of Let go, Let go
No, No
Shit, no?
Then what,
I don’t know…

I empathized
and saw you
and raised you,
again Mr. Vegas,
this stake by stake
trap-as-you-gamble
let-go-as-you-lose

But dear, it’s gone too far
for the far-too-soon
far-too-late thing
and I know how it feels
already, I know
the undeniable
so ugly, so raw

You’re so patronizingly right…

Yet nothing.
Nothing is there
when there’s so much,
when it aches
and churns
in its nothingness
aplenty, Only

why?
Honestly, I don’t know!

And so it goes,
hijack neutral,
take me hostage
request no ransom
and just be this
ache/churn/suck
taste/sound/f–

Well, you decide.

I emphasize,
I really do.
But if you’re reading this,
then there’s something
you should know:

I don’t,
Only how soon?

– Sarah Badr

Gallery — Run-on