After Drowning script
her
Tell me it was for the hunger
and nothing less.
For hunger is to give
the body what it knows
it cannot keep.
him
In this new country
everything looks like you.
We used to climb these trees
until we found
the end of our ambitions.
A brother is like one’s shoulder.
My brother.
The burning last four days
and on the fourth day we left.
Even though I never left.
Homer was a man who wanted to eat the world
like you, he had an appetite for everything he saw.
You said: philosophy is really homesickness.
It is the urge to be home everywhere.
There is no question I am starving.
There is no question I am making this journey
to find out what appetite is.
That endless afternoon with my brother
when the world disappeared for the first time.
The boats, the forced leaving
the surrender to this new country.
Only you were there with me.
You were the window.
her
I hope it’s not too much to say.
Your looking makes me feel lonely.
You talk about your brother
as if he was the survivor, not you.
Not us.
Some mornings I hate you more than myself.
him
Without tears I become invisible.
Your face looked out from mine.
You are alive because you’re a question.
What’s it like to be the first anything?
her
I grew up disappearing into a body.
Just like you.
him
When I touch her
I see the face of my brother drowning again.
Why didn’t he keep his promise
and take me with him?
her
War is a form of divination.
We think we are safe, but there is no shelter.
When we stopped arguing
the only thing left to invent was how to say good-bye.
him
In the dream I am not the centre, the hero
I am the landscape
you told us we had to leave.
Survival is the second kind of death
You couldn’t hold onto the boat
and I can’t hold onto the shore.
Was I already dead
before you killed me?