life’s short & full of traffic, so give me some upbeat jazz
instead of elevator music. Deep in Queens, I want to dance
with a stranger during our commutes as if we were the planets
& their moons, play Russian roulette & make dinner reservations
at a place I never could afford. We’ll pretend none of this ever
happened at our stops, or until I get the reminder text 30 minutes
before it’s time to eat. Lord, I want all the things I was told
would kill me: raw octopus with a bottle of soju, the half-baked
Friday night horrors on Channel 71 our mothers said were sinful,
keeping all the lights on in the house before leaving. What a bad day
it’d become if I die three times—I’ll have to make excuses for it later,
as bad things always come in threes & we’re already in a rush.
Darling, despite what you’ve heard so far, I am still learning how
to survive. I remember to lock the door behind me every day,
but once a week I forget something & remember twenty stops away,
put a nice dinner on my credit card. The bills never end,
but every so often I get the bus driver who only plays Whitney
& we’ll dance real slow when it’s not too crowded, forget for a minute
or two. Life’s difficult enough already. Let’s close our eyes & pray,
tell ourselves to look into a stranger’s eyes & see if we find the sun.
–
Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is an Iranian American multimedia writer, artist, and journalist. Her creative writing has appeared in Passages North, The Cortland Review, Salamander, RHINO, Salt Hill, and The Journal, among others. Her work is the recipient of awards and support from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Fulbright Program, U.S. State Department, Brooklyn Poets, and the University of Arizona. She is an Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications.