Featured Poet - Arshi Mortuza

BEFORE I DROWNED IN METAPHORS

The ocean noticed

I might be

a little hard to please

and decided

to perform for me.

“Still or sparkling?” it asked—

I’m someone who’s been

strolling beaches

like an empty shell,

my gooey soul

scooped out.

I told it:

I’m in the mood

for stillness.

So it flattened

without a crease—

shoreline

to sublime.

Yesterday,

those same waves wallowed

like love-starved puppies.

Tomorrow,

they might turn

to a stretch of cobalt sea glass—

and invite me

to walk barefoot

across its frosted surface

searching

for the exact moment

a beach

stopped being

just a beach

to me.

Somewhere

in the depths,

a four-year-old girl

still plays—

pink bathing suit,

loosened pigtails,

sunsets of Waikiki—

tasting the ocean

for the first time,

and noticing

its salt.

MOSQUITO BITES

I’ll admit I don’t remember it happening.

I wonder if I even attempted to swat it away.

But then I woke up with a temporary rash

With everlasting impacts

Which were anything but trivial.

LADY MACBETH SEES A PSYCHIATRIST

You see, doc,

I dreamt I killed the king,

and the dream felt as real

as plunging a sword through the old man itself.

There seems to be specks of pure evil

in my brain.

Out, damned spots.

I questioned my morality so hard

that it made me wash my hands

until they blistered

and bled.

WALLPAPERED WORDS

Okay, but in my defense—

that wallpaper was really ugly.

If only you were a little more attuned

to patterns—

like the tone of your sister’s voice,

the way I withdrew anytime

I had to be around your family.

The number of goddamn times

I told you: the color yellow

does not belong on walls.

It will not mix with my blueness

to create a shade of green

to your liking.

Yet you expose me to 

patterns and colors

that clash with my style—

and then label me hysteric.

Urgh. Men.

Footnote: Inspired by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

A MASSAGE FROM KING MIDAS

So, someone broke your 24-karat heart.

Come on in for a gold massage.

Tell me where it hurts today.

Full disclosure:

Your masseuse may just

Rub you the wrong way.

You could become the result of a

Half-hearted craftsmanship;

An unfinished sculpture.

Gold-plated on the outside

Hollow on the inside.

MY GHOST IN EXILE

My heart is a formerly haunted house,

Recently exorcised.

It took trial and error

To get through to the ghost in me.

The language barrier--

Latin, Aramaic, Arabic.

“Go back to where you came from!”

“You do not belong here!”

“How dare you climb the walls,

Cross the borders

Of this heart?”

She looked back, confused.

Unsure of what she had done to be so unwanted.

She was my entire essence;

The one who gave life to my body.

Flickered lights out of ecstasy and mania.

Opened creaky doors for those she wished to know.

And now with my ghost in exile,

I wonder who will take on the low-paying job

Of pumping blood for my next cheap thrill.