Azadeh Babaii-Fard
I
Am
Sitting on the bed
And looking at the purple irises in the wastebasket.
White-robed women in the corridor with their pink lipsticks wave at me. The picture on the cracked wall tells me to be silent and I want to remove the glasses off the tip of her nose so she cannot see me anymore.
The cleft lipped man in the taxi turns around and smiles. Beneath a drab mustache I catch his yellowing teeth falling off one by one. He puts out his cigarette with the car door and the wind covers my face with its ashes. I can't see anything anymore.
When I open my eyes, the sky is red and I never thought that the sky could turn red and I never thought the wind could carry me miles away from the city.
A millipede is walking parallel to my feet and I feel a strong urge to kill her. There's a run in her cream-color stocking and instead of killing her I pull out my nail polish and offer it.
I am very tired; too tired to wave back at the white-robed women in the corridor, too tired to climb the orange covered plane tree across the street to check out the boy next door.
When I go away, I will live in the gray tunnel of my grandmother's house and the wind won't be able to throw me around anymore.
Nor will the cleft lipped man find me.
Not even the cleft lipped man in the taxi. |