inhumans
on a long drive,
i once saw a lone calf
— with hide like toffee-candy and eyes like polished stone.
it stood in a little hole of water and licked at the long-grass that encircled it —
it was novel to me,
like mushrooms after rain
and i swear it caught my eye —
staring with pleading button-black eyes and needly ribs
<<thirsty, wanting, needing>>
but the road was clear and our path was long,
we had no reason to pity the calf
& so we sped along.
Ten-Thousand Hours Is Enough
Around — I hear that it takes 10,000 hours to master something,
I take it then — chewing on my cheek and scratching at my elbows for sixteen years has
transformed me…
if nothing else —
I am a genius at living!
I am a master of life itself.
Fear me history — for I am venerable and sagacious,
And I come to capture the fruitfulness of life that pervades me still,
as a newfound genius of the first-degree,
And granting that my genius gives me some kind of authority — I compel the masses to fall by
my living knee!
I compel that you follow my every decree:
that we stand on our heads until our cheeks are red,
that we swing in the park until the rising sun greets us a fair day,
that we sneak out and be stupid at dark,
&
that you let me cradle your crying head upon my genius-undying heart.
Let me show you a living that spins you like a turnstile,
Let me show you a living that sucks the hurt out from a bee’s sting,
let me show you a living where love can run free.
Just Between,
you & me.
A Body Well Traveled
When my grandmother died,
her best friend traced the palm of my hand with long and delicate fingers,
in a shopping-mall plaza —
And she told me my future;
this was three, almost four years ago now. Still, I feel some pull towards her prediction, thinking
in the mysterious ways of the world —
and thinking it silly —
the way we’ve assigned meaning to
even the lines of our palms,
let our bodies become subjects of mysticism,
and fortune tellers for a road not traveled.
Even though I question her prediction,
there is a small part of me that wants to be washed over by her words.
Perhaps I let myself be tricked into some false security of truth,
by silvered hair and skin come loose like a spool of ribbon.
That venerability where age is the Guarantor
moving out from the lips like th e soft und ula tions of the se a at n i ght…
creeping up onto the shore and then back again with a quick breath.
pulled back and forth by the force of the moon,
in nature, just as mystic and sage as:
A
Body
So well traveled
That it unravels now…
a body with folds and fine lines for every laugh, worship, and tale,
a body pressed, pushed, and pulled against each force,
that it has seen in the three or four times lifetimes more, more:
than I have yet to launch myself upon —
tell me that this is false prophecy,
that fate is no more than a footprint in the sand,
for in magic do I braid myself and written in spells do I finally understand,
where I too will unravel unplanned.
Bibinaz Nami is a student in the Inland Empire. She is a published poet, avid supporter of carefully chosen words, active member of her community, and hopelessly obsessed with edgy YA protagonists. Through her writing she hopes to enlighten others to the uniting power that can be found in words through their expression of our relatable thoughts and experiences.
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