Hiroshima

I wrote Hiroshima when I was much younger. While writing it I didn’t understand the risk of using certain metaphors. This poem definitely isn’t romanticizing destruction and it’s important to keep that in mind while reading it. The poem itself is about recognizing how deeply someone can affect you. Be it a single look or a simple smile. Even now revisiting it. Especially at the time. Love to me was devastation, especially the aftermath. It leveled everything I thought I knew.

I was caught off guard
by the everlasting effect
of your smile.

In all honesty,
I thought I was prepared
for the well-placed explosion
that took place in my heart.

In actuality,
I was not.

Absent-minded to the total embodiment
that was you
the coming of your lips,
the taste of your stare.

I did not know
the effect your voice
would have on me.

There wasn’t a prayer
that could have prepared me
for you.

There was nothing left
of what my heart used to be.

The occurrence of everything
obliterated. Emptied.

The horizon filled
by your silhouette,
my hands
lost in the light cast
by the radiance
of your smile.

I was reduced
to nothingness
in the blink of an eye,
by a single look
cast from the stare
of your eye.

The total sound
of nothingness
filled my heart
with a peaceful hush,
after the destruction
you’ve caused
with just
a single look.