Farnaz Fatemi

Instructions

Wait.

Seek solace

in the unexpected.

Be my own good company.

Notice plants which don’t belong. Appreciate their resolve.

Hear out my panicked songs sure of doom. Soothe them with this listening.

Each day, restart. Notice, wait, soothe. Imagine living to witness a true cease fire. Sit at the tree of patience.

Take what comes—creepy bird call, bitter chilis. See how my flesh shifts to make room for strangeness. Keep small comforts near as
reminders: jar of coffee, favorite poem. Only in this way will I survive.

Winter sticks around with its chill. I wear all my layers. But at noon each day I unzip, invite the future.

I decide to believe that most of us want to save the world.

Do something difficult every day (and not complain).

Help someone do the same.

Notice the sprout.

Water it.

Wait.

 Saw Mill

A few years into the nineties

my girlfriend and I

were at the boys’ bar in SoMa

late at night.

Wood-paneled walls,

tepid lights, her big teeth, pierced nose.

Her eyes even browner than mine.

We both wore pants

and lipstick. In our circles

dark hair was beautiful.

She wore a leather jacket

which crunched when I held her.

We danced until we were hot

for more, then left the crowd

for the roof. She lived nearby.

We weren’t ready to leave.

From the roof we read: Saw Mill,

in sans serif pink neon, not flashing--

just on.

I hear the bar is closing. I want

one chance to go back,

through the sticky walls

and up the staircase

to the years we held each other there.

As if I could travel across

the silence of our severing and hear

the thumping techno underneath us,

let her love me now the way

I let her that night with her hands

down my shirt and

the neon lighting up our cheeks

as we leaned close.

She has been dead for years.

We’ve been apart for longer.

But that roof held us.

2 AM

All I ever think about is

being wrong—not funny enough,

certainly not weird enough, not

doing the work I was meant to do

even though the days pile up

filled with my own buzzing, what

generates a flame of worth--

however fleeting. Always fleeting.

I spiral back down.

Just a mood born from my navel gazing. I can’t

keep the crows of comparison away. I can’t

let them lie. I can’t

murder their meaning. Nights like these,

nothing works

or if it works it’s chemical and

points out further flaws. How

quickly I fail, over and over.  I

repeat this cycle of utterly

sucking at loving what I am.

Truthfully: I want to. So much of me strives to

understand how to shake the shame,

vies for space in my brain

wake of my chest, spark of breath.

Xylem of determination.

Yesterday I glimmered this

zeal. Then as quickly as it glowed, it was gone.