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4.09.20

Leela Ghaemmaghami

i hate it here i hate it here i hate it here. my mantra a twisting knife in my mother’s gut,

my mother whose here is not my here, whose here is home,

home to an ungrateful upstairs daughter stretched out inches above her mattress.

the key to levitation is detachment. to become weightless i remove weight, piece by

piece shedding layers of fabric, of grief, of history. newly nude i rise higher higher

higher, my pelvis led by a puppeteer’s string i emerge, bare, into the night. there

my body disintegrates, my dangling arms dripping along gravity’s pull, i can’t help

but count the stars. one two, three four, five. under the pink moon i know these

stars are not my stars.

my physical form slowly slips from me, another disregarded layer. it’s tranquility &

liberation at once, a smooth exit from here, entrance to everywhere. my vision now

unhindered by eyes, limitless; i see the room where i once lay, confinement or

coffin, i wonder. does it matter? i am nothing. i see my first love, shaving her head,

dirty blonde locks floating down down down, feathers on a dusty mahogany floor.

i used to see swimming pools in suburbs, sunburns on shoulders, seventeen &

swallowed by social status. now i see the last place we said goodbye & i hardly

recognize it. i see my grandmother’s hands shaking as she switches off the news. i

see handwritten hazmat signs & grim graffiti. i don’t know where i am.

i try to float higher, to follow the winding highway away away away, past the blue

mountains towards my other home, my other family, my future. but it’s stronger

than ever, the bubble encasing this town.

bulletproof glass thick enough my bodiless form smashes against the surface, a bug

on a windshield. i am where i’ve always been. my forehead presses against the

dome & i begin to un-melt, my lips forming a name i had tried to forget. when will

it end? i feel my chest rise once again, my breaths deep & easy, a reminder. from

my torso i find limbs, soft against the cloudless night, goosebumps rising as the

wind whispers a song i almost remember.

i plunge into my house, my room, my self. at least i have here.

about the writer

Leela is an undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. She is originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, and after graduation will be working in Chicago. In between school and work, Leela enjoys writing poems and short stories with the theme of out-of-body experience. Visit her portfolio site at http://lgha.me.