i, the definitive

the only you in the world

i am and you are individual

we are separate

we are absolute masters

of our individual perceived universes.

She is faded.

Worn out,

Worn down.

Time stole her crown.

What do you do when the place you call home

Is one that you no longer recognize; when you

Forget that place is no mere function of space,

But also a function of time; and the

Crystalline memories you can still see,

there was a river/in the black hills/that my favorite trail followed/with pine trees lining

its banks/of hard ground and towering rocks//i would beg my father/to walk that trail/

as far as it went/as many days as i could//and as we walked he would/recite poems from

i could break beneath the weight of

atmosphere.

these stars, balanced atop my head

are heavier than the sun,

lending their light

across a universe, a lifetime

to shatter my insides in their silence.

I was age twelve when I first drew her.

On sad days,

his eyes tell me stories –

stories of pain,

of struggle,

of truth.

They hold within them soft, grey clouds after April afternoon storms.

But the sky is bright without the sun,

because it is never truly gone.

I'm not sure if the glass is half empty or half full. 

Coffee shops leave me homesick for 8 minute drives to your cul-de-sac, to your arms; you're always busy. 

Give me an unagitated evening,

where I could sleep-walk

under a light rose-petal sky,

and arrive at your door,

40 miles away,

just in time for dinner.

I am in love with a girl… who is afraid of breakfast,

who brews coffee in the morning like gasoline feeding a starving engine.

Her fingers dance around the machinery of her waist out of step with reality.

The initial absolute of "black"

fizzes out; reds and blues and shapes pulse

with every beat of your racing heart.

You can feel her hands, see the basic outline of them,

of her shoulders, her curved collarbone.

As you reach for her -

Today, I am the only song you’ve ever known all the words to.  I am the first person who ever meant it and the last thought you can manage before you close your eyes. You look at me, and all you see is light. You look at me, blinded, and you tell me you’re the happiest person alive.

“People just choose to be pink, everyone is born blue.” “People with pink marks are going straight to hell.”

“There are places to go to get your pink mark made blue again, so why not go?” “These millennials with their pink marks.”

“Blue marks are the superior marks.” “Hello.”

I hate diaspora poetry

as much as the next

fed-up immigrant

All that bullshit

about “lives stained

with honey and turmeric”

and “the colonizer

cutting my tongue with

aluminum shears”

is utterly boring

The night before my first day of sixth grade, I studied the piece of fabric laid out on my bed with uncharacteristic placidity. It was no work of art; plain cotton fabric, dyed black, with a single strip of black lace for adornment.

When I needed a white sheet for Toga day at school, my father immediately gave me his own white cloth. The weave was loose and rough, with a smooth strip of gold running down one side, so large I thought it was a sari.

Fidgeting my leg against a familiar school desk, the dreadful anticipation always washes over me while listening to roll call on the first day of school.

His taste in music was mayonnaise: bland and unappreciated by most of the population. I guess you could say I love mayonnaise. We attended the same school, but a year separated us so we didn’t have any classes together.

Day and night become irrelevant 

Time is no longer marked by the movement of the sun

But rather the hours passed in front of a screen

iconic narcotic, cut it with a straight edge, that’s ironic, feelings are chronic, brought without logic, she broke in with a lock pick, to purify the toxic, joint sockets, fill his deep pockets, talk to him, but change the topic

Pakistan and America 

Eastern and western

but they feel like the north and south poles

I’m immersed in the red silk dresses embroidered by hand and I’m in love with the ability to roam alone across this land

Unsure.

About the question, or the world?

Unsure whether to answer truthfully, or to fabricate a more intriguing narrative.

Unsure what the question implies: Fears,

(Spiders, bad grades, falling out of love)

In Iran I am a rebel. I show my hair. In Brazil I am exotic. The nomads left me their yellow eyes to search the desert sand. Where I live, there is no sand. In America I am my age. Stuck in the in-between where nothing lasts. I am the enemy.

I was in the middle of Alabama, silhouette illuminated by the golden hour’s subtle sunlight, engrossed in a conversation with my cousin, just catching up.

He’d asked me if I was any better, and I’d told him that “at least I know my triggers now.” 

And so the sun, in its dying fire falls,

Into the darkness of the night’s black realm.

The moon ascends into the sky, so stalls

I, to see its beauty and feel its calm.

But then come the stars, crossed in others eyes,

my hair bleeds purple when i sleep

dark, violet, translucent in the way that sausage fat boiling on the pan is

before it touches a towel

in the way that a ghost’s imprint is before fingerprints are left on the kitchen counter

It’s difficult,

The business of learning a new language.

Words slip away from you like a skittish bird

But you grasp for them

And try to give them some meaning.

i screamed into the void until my lungs collapsed,

but she barely gave me a glance when the silence relapsed.

i called out to the stars and they gave me an excuse:

“hey man i’m sorry, it’s me, it’s not you.”

when you click your heels and wish for home, where exactly is it that you go? i packed away all my ambition in manilla envelopes of faded dreams and sent them away to coral reefs so schools of fish a generation after me could learn from my mistakes.

I didn’t ask for your 

insecurities

Or your hands 

To venerate me.