GOODBYE SONG
the software of animals
appearing a certain way
to me generally cute or grotesque
departing the university
for another stretch of university
a handsome man very tall
believing a sensation over the mind
he could stand near me
I could feel warm I
could imagine myself pregnant
a spider on my leg
crawling yet considering convenience
the thrill of it’s body
god gave me these legs shouldn’t I walk? etc
a logic for all manner of things
defend the spider’s life in silence
in the grass
is there urine here?
universally always yes
I’ve been wanting to die for a number of years
I return to this belief about cowardice
is there a justification ever for weakness?
a way to stop movement
through dissection
Wanting to see the country again, by car. A long trip into the valley. Where it is hot. There is
a
dream of a boat that lurches through the ocean we can see
the sea a planet. I was on the flotilla becoming a shard,
I want to commit suicide but it’s unclear why
the tremoring earth imagines a way to finally bring the people down
I think a seagull was in a peach tree I walked by
are these birds eating garbage or do they
like the inland heat. I want a house made of many materials, like bricks
hard to fall even time unravelling must, take a great effort
to
not love me anymore for him
I want a rational explanation for survival taking the seagull out of the sea
she squawks wherever she goes
will it be funny ever to watch it fat on a peach
It’s jaw which replicates my own stomach
something in the sea full of people
feels sad wandering the earth with purpose
your adrenaline makes you powerful it loosens my bowels
.Hehe
an aspect of my life instead of the whole
the whole of
the word whole a
hole to enter through
fallacy the hole loosens squeaks
tightens
the hole squeezes shut becoming
itself a motion impeding
motion
my hole so loose it
brings out its materials throughout the day
shedding membrane
standing in the cold water becoming warm
heating the suit squeaking wringing motion
the hands form a tight shape
building up reforming
in the sun
my red bathing suit’s
lost lining the
thorax of it
on skin
legs
can be conditioned to
be felt
sit and let it crawl
along my mole
with the feeling of
soft carrot hair
well
who would kill me
on their mole?
pressing weight not known only
imagined once known or
felt by presence or too close
to understand as feeling
inscrutably the same
predictable forward march
circling edges
as people
avoiding the irrational
choice
the choice
to not see
to abet all feeling
beginning pain
ugh stopping
him yields no love
the pressing animal heart
free from anxiety
the animal skin worn shorn
standing high in my palm
a leg just a
finger
NIGHT TERRORS
who made the hot-blooded veined grape
an exam
the skin peeled back shows liquid skin
it’s evil music, evil is a hot word parody of
mixing the alternative: spit and spirit
this child acts this way constantly weeping and moaning
wanting to touch and spill water on the couch
he’s loud, did it occur to him my god
the noise is so trouble
here he sees me undressed and is spanked
a way to leave the house without kindness or piety
he will sit in the cold white house
all day long
the dogs or the Yahood the only mythic threat I’ve heard so far
to keep the night fearful I drummed up a third belief of crime
shattering and doors opening
to keep the night interesting I’ve slept little
I’ve slept through the day, heard the horn
calling the morning what it is
became drained by inversion, but still
itself noise, which silence is most damaging?
the secret about the night is it’s opening
the creatures of time morph angularly forward
without blood or with blood strewn about
the creatures of night know my illness
they bathe the day supple
an erratic disease no,
trust is not the issue, trust
no, becomes a curtain
filtering light, I’ve seen the day
break up everything I heard and saw
I saw flames float in the air
in the day my solution is noiselessness can
you imagine such a thing? such is life
they say, to take off the sting
I bathe less
retain moisture
wear sunscreen, this heat is for the weakest and strongest
to collapse, to yell again
to seek reprieve to receive nothing
to resort to something,
to become violent with potential
for splattering, in moisture
in the self, to
trust the self the most
and animate
Samira Abed is a poet from California. She is Palestinian-American and committed to Palestinian liberation. You can read her stuff in the Dialogist, Fikra, and Spectrum. She is the co-editor, along with her friends, Hannah Piette and Scout Turkel, of Common Place, a journal of poetics: https://commonplacepoetics.com/ and is currently getting her Masters in Poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.