by Afieya Kipp
I loved that night: the sky a cosmic ice cream sandwich—Jula, with her skin like stretched vegetable tanned leather, putting her gypsy bells to work outside my crescent window. A chandelier of cow hearts, goat tongues and bikini waxed bunnies for sale, for sale! Usually, the sign of life is kamoun, basbas, felfla, naanaa!…and all the wonder of infinite tomorrows trapped, here—a candy necklace of plush dates disguised as ‘days of the week.’ You once called me a man chopping down a mango tree, and everything right about baklava: sweet, and not for everyone. We picked this place to see if Burroughs was right: the throbbing paranoia and cobblestone streets permanently dyed with the blood of half dead chickens; the air spiced with urine and burning couscous—trying to escape this whole story that you knew I’d write of girl meets girl, falls in love, and one day girl number two feels the pulsating geode in her chest that multiplies and turns her breasts into sandbags and knows she’ll be called to someplace near the moon soon so she says to girl number one ‘let’s go to the place with the best kif and dip our bread into mint tea.’ Mirror, mirror…show me an independent womyn with unlimited lives. No, no—Even when you mistook me for Sylvia, and snuck pickled lemons into my rice, and cried because your pills made you weary and all you wanted to do was kiss me on the beach…even then, I decided you were my Vallee de l’Amour and learned how to hover my index finger underneath the noses of those who slept in my bed, and always say ‘Good Morning.’
Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing