by Ariel N. Banayan
smoking is my healthiest habit
prayer is my final sin
I am a lot lonelier when reading a poem
the air growing dirtier, I suddenly imagine ash
neatly sitting on everything around me as the torn shadow
of a burning plane still in flight—
loneliness is my only joy
happiness & transcendence & flight are not the same
paradise anymore
so I hold loneliness near my dusty body
despite its transience & I cherish
a feeling not found in ads
anywhere—
people have better things to do than read
I realize
as the hollow nightcolor presses against my skull
with its empty hand
to carve a face from ice
Ariel N. Banayan is an Iranian Jewish writer born and raised in Los Angeles. He is currently a graduate fellow at Chapman University’s dual MA/MFA degree program, where he teaches a class on the rhetoric of memory to first-year students.
Emerge Literary Journal 