#pardis aliakbarkhani

I am learning softly how not to become undone by change. To anticipate it. To crave it. To allow it to contour my body. Shape me into a person who is always becoming and is not reduced to fear by it.

you will only get one chance to break my heart. and when it is done. and I have left you. with our memories tucked in my back pocket. with my pieces glued thinly together again. you will reminisce and wish you had softer hands for handling me.

how many women

the new year has come. the earth, healing. our people, enduring. chaos and quiet, beautiful stillness in resilience will define another year.

When I am learning someone new. I bury myself in their language. I grow from the root of their memories. I am watered by the dew fresh on their lips in the early morning.

I am learning to be as sweet in the end as I was earnest in the beginning. That is the only way to honor the love, even after it has left.

I will remember you even when I forget everything and everyone else. Your memory is sweet to me. A cherished thing.

I feel weak. For forgetting who you are. What you've done. For tracing only the love in the curves of your body, in the arch of your back, in the lines pulling back your lips into a smile. How could I forget and feel only the love again? The love that you never left unmarred by pain can't be made pure this way. By time. By forgetting. You changed its chemistry long ago. But here I am, feeling it freshly, without pain or ego, and I am weak for it again.