Poetry: 2022

By: Jasmine Nihmey Vasdi

these women existed before me, in a flurry of emotion or turned heads

a peacock flurry stirred with ice,

a hyperventilation, a supposed soothing from our current times

free across a screen and fucking of thumbs

dancing into a scene I thought I knew against mountains but

swiped away and lost forever.

Liking and hugging everything against a quarantine of emotions

too far too pushed

past a broken window pieced together by masks and terrified eyes

I hear the stories of elders and wish I could join them

but I am across a sea rotten with history

We talk about energy

Universal Synergy

against a movement of suffering

resonating in the drums of forests

and protesting squares where we again find our voices

Such a naïve space

we still don’t fully understand:

how the moon has eyes carved out on every rooftop

how the world forever shakes down the only coin in a soul

Thrusting a palm of honey into the eager mouths of strangers

we tap into our tastes and others’ approval

so we can move faster to forget, and begin again