by Sarah E. Azizi
A person’s harder to keep safe
than a set of china thru a cross
country move, or a secret.
I’m the one who ends things,
usually. Breaks them
off. Last time I cried for a lost lover
I cannot say. My past’s littered w/ headless
dolls, chipped teacups, spineless books—
a crack here, frayed edge there, til pages
spill out & scatter. Suffice to say
I no longer mind the shattered
crystal. I’m not complaining; I love
finishing something off. The glass bottle
of olive oil clinks as it hits the drooling soup
can in the bin. I happily toss half-drunk flat
sodas, ice cream cartons, stale crackers.
Everything’s got an expiration date. I blame
timing, list resentments, lose hope. It’s not you,
it’s me, picking the same situation over & over,
filling emptiness w/ the fickle light of love
when I know better. I’ve lost so many people,
what’s a few more? I lost a whole country once,
& w/ it tongue & family. I’m foreign everywhere
I go, traveling endlessly, waiting for the perfect
fresh start, the nouveau go around the arc
of love. Everything’s replaceable in this day & age,
thanks to the scheme we term insurance. I pay a lot
for mine, bc I refuse to stop smoking—
I still love the ritual: pounding the pack against
my palm, unwrapping & crinkling cellophane,
pulling the foil up & out. The crisp scent of a fresh pack!
The friend who taught me to smoke disappeared
a few months later—her purse, holding her ID,
three dollars, & a set of keys, was splayed
open on a residential road. “Once you smoke,”
she told me, “you’ll never be bored.”
We were eighteen & edgy & cool & knew
nothing yet of how a day can unfold
into a thousand tiny cuts of despair
or distress, or worst: ennui.
No part of her has ever surfaced:
not tooth nor bone nor strand of hair.
I imagine she’s dead, but what I would
not give to know—
A heavy box w/ softening corners
holds every love letter written to me
before the advent of email et al.
The past is vast, harder to hold onto.
It’s beginnings I crave:
blank journals, dawn over the mountains,
Monday waving from its firm perch.
Every empty space beckons to be
transformed. Throw it all away, I say.
Reset! Look: my refrigerator’s shelves
gleam, brightly lit & blinding. I’ll mess
them up again soon enough, but I relish
this hunger, how it simultaneously demands
& refuses to be sated. It’s meaning I covet,
sinfully & thoroughly, & meaning’s tied up
w/ desire, knotted in the spaces between
fullness, carrying the promise & beauty
of a resolution, an answer, an end.
Sarah E. Azizi is a queer Iranian-American writer, educator, & activist. Previous publications include $pread Magazine, Phoebe: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 34th Parallel, Blue Mesa Review, Fahmidan Journal, Clean Sheets, red, The Tide Rises, HELD, Wrongdoing Magazine, the winnow, Superpresent, Nine Mile, The Coop, & Free State Review. Her work appears in the anthology Rituals from Bell Press & Not Ghosts but Spirits from Querencia Press. She lives in Albuquerque w/ her daughter & amongst friends, frenemies, & family of choice.
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