Trauma and the Body

chaptre 1
always keep tea out on the counter for the moon.

chaptre 2
my uncle has a mushy joyful face, full of calm with glowing embers. if you overstep him, his wrinkles
twist and turn and, in a flash, they leave his face coming at you with a pierce. fast flame. and he’ll
address you directly. he speaks of poetry and art as if they were his lungs and liver. you know, the bottom of the pot where the love lingers. he is that.

his apartment is on the second floor. carpets are his home’s skin, books and bowls of nuts sleep in
corners, and the kitchen is for snuggling. on the refrigerator are family pictures. most are portraits,
cousins, but one photo has three faces. uniform collars, handsome black eyes, passed on.
war angelic prosthetic thick hairs and neck. dead.

his home remembers.

chaptre 3
The last time I really saw him we were in a cafe, small with burgers, and all I wanted was
to hear him speak. He has a thick face of wood, honey cheekbones up and through, nose
full, and a harsh brow. Tea, he asks for, every time, and his face cracks when I get coffee.
He would say something wounded like, this is not your culture, and let out a defeated
laugh. Every once in a while he would hint at his pain, with a twinkled eye, but the truth
was his immigration had become part of his spirit.

how do we hold our blood?

He didn’t remember much from where he came, or he never spoke about it. When
asked, he lost his words and only spoke in photographs. He insisted he had lost his native
language, while I watched him sing it fluently to strangers. He whispered that he did not
know his home. I know there was an orchard, or fruit, nearby. And his tongue was
always sour. He taught me onions, tomatoes, and eggs, cardamom and rice.

At the cafe, our table was metal with wobble, no salt, no sugar. He spoke for some time,
as expected. The constant tilt of the table cut his words—little lapses, which brought
shimmer to the reason we had to meet there to begin with.

find your air and the wheel will turn with you.

There was once a man who had to immigrate to a land he did not know. He had a thick
face of wood, honey cheekbones up and through, nose full, and a harsh brow. Soon after
he arrived, he fell sick. With no healer in this new place, he was hospitalized. A blood
infection. Soon, all of his blood would be replaced...

With new blood streaming through him, he stood differently. His smile became forced,
his shoulders tense, and his words became lies.

...erotic, prophetic, shameful, manic, mental, psychotic,
crazy, stupid, embarrassing, sexy, queer, unstable, dangerous, sick,
zyotic, nictal, quenty, rothetic, hampid, staful,
medan, eroanic, crach, razphet, seezy,
aniental, hotex, undang, mentick, kerod, mefrous, ameral,
psypidy, quamable, tabtic, raztup, phroy, ickmefy….

Do you lick the sharp edges of letters with your tongue?
Slide on their curves and gag on their gritty harmonies?
Flick them around when english doesn’t taste right.
Spit them out when your gums are bleeding

or put them in your sock.

The man had become uncertain, uneasy. He could not even recall his own name.
Recurring dreams took the place of his memories... over and over…

face hairy, nose, thick mane and arm wool,
dimpling stretched, hair big hair, skin and jiggle …
aw, I know you want this drool drowned fat
pussing cyst crust rolled pudding
roasted duck bump and furry lard splendor …
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Until one day someone came to him in a dream. They said … if we just close our eyes and point up, we
can take ourselves anywhere. Do this. Remember where you go every time, and you will know where
your spirit lies. But be careful, you always want to come back. You don’t want to risk getting lost between here and the moon…

He changed his name a few times, I think. He wasn’t lost, only on a windy path. He would say something
wounded like, you may look in many directions, but meaning travels through you effortlessly. Take down
your jewels, listen with your bones ... wholeness and oneness do not dance.

Pluck my stomach, pig valve, spice me plump.
Brain crust, molten heartbeat, lull ash, repasse.

And now, here we are,
trending …

chaptre 4
have you ever held your blood in your hand? staining my cuticles is a monthly joy. but, i mean blood
from wounds. and, have you ever had all of your blood transfused with that of strangers?
what runs in your blood then?

chaptre 5
she tried to create her family’s story over and over again, only to come to the same place. she did not
have a conscious memory of location. she did not taste the air or kiss the soil. today if she speaks, she
knows yek zabân kâfi nist. she must tell a story that cannot end because it never began. one that cannot
resolve because it was never spoken out loud to begin with. one that only she holds in her slouching
weighted shoulders. in her mighty psychosis. in her undulating gut. one that gets locked away in a
solitary room, taken away, over and over again. but she is not alone. welcome.

* one language is not enough. Persian.