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Anita Farsad
Untitled Jealousy
we met for the first time in an alleyway between
an evangelical church and a high-rise dormitory you
laughed at how I smoked a joint and awoke in me
a desperate performance a pucker of the lips
formed into a flower an image of me
that dipped and soured knots
knotted in my throat over and over you
teetered on the tip of a stone tongue
sat perched and solid, back arched and gleaming
toes kneading hard kernels of soil open
is it still witnessing if all I see is my lack?
a home built on the wings of paint chip
butterflies a rainbow of homemade creatures we
folded and pasted and loved dearly though
destined to fall and form a grave of pastel piles you
said what a beautiful extinction and i
rushed to file corpses between spoiled
banana peels and avocado pits and broccoli stems i
threw my loved ones into the compost bin
as if loving was only meant to begin when the soil says so
laid flat on our butterfly roof i
watched the sky turn from crimson to void an ache
churned deep in my gut and swelled into a geyser
propelled up a stream of spit splattered
rivers of spittle through my softness
whittled down between desperate teeth i
was sealed shut in a warm mouth
flicked back by a lazy tongue
swallowed whole and gagging
on a life so easily shared
a sticky paste of jealous flesh i
seared and roasted and mashed myself into
a glass jar and stamped it with the bold letters
“how horribly thick a thin love can be”
misplaced my rot i forgot it decomposing
on my nightstand and boarded a plane i
gorged myself on poems and turned pages with
a decaying left hand like a forewarning
why do I compare abandoning you to loving butterflies?
i arrived a thousand miles away with a year’s
supply of hazy images of myself
that looked a lot like you
Anita Shaida Farsad is an Iranian-American emerging writer, poet, and facilitator. She is based in Washington DC, raised in Texas, and claims Morocco as her second home. Her creative work explores themes of memory, diaspora, and language. She believes in the power of storytelling and writing as witnessing to shift dominant narratives and create change.
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