The Other Americans

by Laila Lalami

pain is a private business,

Perhaps memory is not merely the preservation of a moment in the mind, but the process of repeatedly returning to it, carefully breaking it up in parts and assembling them again until we can make sense of what we remember.

I wondered whether there would ever be a time when I would be at peace, when my heart would not feel as though lead had been cast inside it.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries / the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself.

Pablo Neruda