I just wanted to thank you for creating such a meaningful space for poets.
Your platform has helped me grow and reach readers in ways I never imagined.

As I begin shaping my next poetry collection, I’d be deeply honored to receive a title suggestion from you.
I can’t think of a more meaningful way to name it than with your insight, since you’ve been such a part of my journey.

With gratitude,
Zahra

some of the people
have double numbers,
speak in two tongues,
sing with three voices.

all being equal, the song
is sung in whatever
language, or creed.

indeed, we often say
the name of those, so
seeming to become
boring,

we carry on, we carry on.

plan visits to new places,
the sky is dark this morning.

madness masquerades
as mornings that come
and go

and dancing madly backwards
Pan plays his lute
down desolate streets
disappearing into the raging sun
of all possibilities.

the sad mornings that come and go, and

all possibilities considered

far from the haunted clocks
and cracking glass
margins shout
where walls never meet

in forgotten stillness.
so dance on silent ledges,

walk the high wire,
jump into the fire,

welcome madness passionately.

do something completely unexpected.

enjoy the imperfections,
kiss a stranger,
laugh when you should be crying,

madness is magic,
so strip down
naked as the wolf in the forest,
logic be ******,
howl along with the howling wind.

Drunk, we walked west to the ocean,
drop soup and sake,
sloshing in our guts.

You would marry in twenty days.
I stayed close,
swallowing the words
that would’ve ruined it all.

In seven years,
I will have a son.
You will bury yours.
We will wonder - quietly -
if souls can be traded,
if grief moves
like a current
between blood that is not blood.

The tide was electric,
a woman waded in,
cupped bioluminescence
like an ember from the deep.

We stood apart from the others,
two men
bone-wet and wind-bit,
trying to scratch our names
into blue light,
signatures gone
before the next wave came.

I never told you the future.
I let the dark reclaim our feet.
You laughed,
drunk and perfect,
and I looked away
as the sea
turned the sand
back to stone.