The ultimate question — Suleiman Zailani

Is it love?
Special B
That we now speak
Like warring knights
And eye each other
With mutual suspicion
And question laden thoughts.

Is it love?
That whenever we speak
We weigh each weighty word
As we tread on thin ice
Of our hanging bond.
Is it love?
That whenever we sight
Each other’s face
Our pulses quicken
With heads of trepidation
In the course and corollary
Of our encounter.

Is it love?
That in the quagmire of deceit
Your acts slowly corrode
And ladle acids
On my worn out tongue.

Is it love?
That despite mishaps
Deliberate or otherwise
Of our mangled tie
We still detect
Glimmers of affection
Each unable to bear
The perpetual erection
Of divisive walls.
Is it love?

That we stoop to aridify
Our well-watered garden landscape
With encroaching desert
Of deceit and hidden truths
is it love?