IDA BAKHTIARY-RAHIMI

brown jouissance

i cud watch the presidential debate / or i cud get laid / see i can be soft and sharp like a / seared tongue on the edge of ur teeth / like u i keel at the sight of cute things / peer out from the casket of my desires / this wanting has to go somewhere / and i cud never hold it in my mouth long enough / see i came of age with a nostalgia so primal / i yearned for a place that no longer existed / like u i thought i wanted to die / walked in the middle of the street at night / this wanting has to go somewhere / and i cud never hold it in my mouth / long enough / see we were never asked for what we wanted / tucked it between oblivion and tomorrow / like u i wake up in this violent country / this wanting has somewhere to go / and i cud go on but ill / stop

THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH

I had a godless childhood
still do
To hear that even the stars
are dead was enough
to prove how lonely it feels:
you, a random point pulsing
through the timeline of infinite
grief, all of us scattered
They say that we’re all made
of stardust But leave out
the explosions
the matter that was destroyed
under these laws of physics
And still no clue how to make a
life

I DONT WANT UR MONEY
lets just care for each other
said no doctor
lawyer
politician
consultant
president
monarch
dictator
colonizer
cop
ever

When i told my friends i wanted
to be an artist
they said
why dont you want to get
married?

and i said
my parents had to escape death to
find each other and even that was
not enough of a reason to call this
living

and they said
lollll but you would have such
cute little brown bab–
and ive been running through
space-time ever since

Ida Bakhtiary-Rahimi is a queer, Iranian American writer and artist. Ida’s work was selected for the 2024-2025 Boston Mayor’s Poetry Program and is the recipient of fellowships from VONA and the Somerville Arts Council. Ida works and studies in the English Dept. at Tufts University.