You’re Almost There (Kinda)

By Elika Khosravani

On a sun-stained Sunday, I waltz this island tip-to-tip and think of everything I do not know yet.

I am pulled in every disadvantage. I pinprick after folks who don't afford young gals a first or third thought. I bury my nationalism in marine moorlands. I dandelion in the darling until my footholds bleed. I get carsick often but never homesick. Rain mauls and stings how it did as a child. There are days where I feel whole and days where I feel holes all over my body. There is nonentity in-between.

The year hungers impatiently, insistently. It moves on. I must keep going.

A saint slants against my door. Gum gleams clad with cod, line-cutting through near flight. “What do you think?” It asks. In retaliation: the faucet's faint drip, porcelain tiles cool, biology road-tax grim and thick. Girly drivings drain my chivalry. I let myself forget a little longer.

March is a month of aching. A halo of hickeys haunts the hollow of my throat. I kiss unknown souls like sinking into sinew, cracked lips chasing certainty in a crowded bar. The spoil of lucidity like liturgy trickling down the spleen of Hindsight, the spit of love like liquor spilling down the spine of the West Side Highway.

I want to twirl with cords of horror and honor, with ropes of hope and honey, or perhaps be taught about guilt. Drunk as a Lord, I dream of blue jazz and slow partiality.

It will run dry soon, but soft hymns in my lungs still chant: Don’t Stop. I Will Carry On, and 

You Must Follow Along.