My other mother told me of her obsession with insects,
their movements and the incomprehensible minuteness of their brains
and wrote about them as if they were fully developed human beings,
Worms, she said, lack vertebrae not poignancy
she supped on the eerie microscopically terrifying,
eager pincers at the ready, devouring black hole eyes,
sunken ships that I abandon myself to,
below the cracks of glass and soil
they watch, waiting for me to
drown in the depths of my bitter red
at the end of the night cut off a leg to match the arm
crushed by a careless cup and its cardboard counterpart,
relieving invisible burdens, tickling
the Janus locked around my Ariadne
inching closer to death,
as blood fills empty vowels
I spit them out in clumps
the shoes keep shifting and multiplying
fourfold though the appendages are dust
We write of our misery, she said,
fuel for the pain-body
trading secrets and drinking clorox to get squiffy
eye rolls and snide remarks only go so far
hidden in creatures smaller than our palms
the lamp shade of spider
seated inside the frame,
the board of directors my flatmate wanted to suck into a vacuum,
screams unintelligible to the human ear
their extermination, my annihilation
a puppet, strings attached, twitching to its last.
Keyona is Iranian-American and grew up in Qatar. Currently, she studies English and adores writing, music, and any creative way to express herself. She loves poetry and finds herself drawn to Victorian and 20th-century poets as well as themes of duality, identity, and gender. She is constantly inspired by family and friends (and random fleeting experiences of the everyday).
