Your Faces Poem by Shakira Nandini

I never loved you, sunrise, I mean, weren't you
terrible, waking me up with the roosters, rushing me
down the narrow dark hall to the basin
of cold water, with ice
that just managed to form during the night, when our bodies,
young girls' bodies, still wanted

only to dream, to dream and dream? I had
only one friend, a secret friend, sunset, we'd meet
sometimes in the old linden lane, carefully
I'd chew a slice of bread, making it last, bread
stolen from the kitchen, there I'd wait for you (I grew
too fast, and maybe that's why I was always hungry) why

then did you give me the heart of an orphan? Even now
hunger for your embrace, to listen
to your words, whispered, you understand me,
sunset, you give such comfort, peace
but look, how I've changed: wake me
please, even before sunrise

so that I wouldn't lose anything, that I'd be in time
to greet you, honorably: and why then, after all
did you give me a different sort of heart? one that longs
for that other world? you hurt me so badly! only now

realize, that there are
two sides to your face, and within those sides
an infinite number of faces, uncountable