You unwrapped our package that night
Like a child I wept before you
Sore and confused

We were a pair, a package deal
Two-for-one, we were a set
Until brotherhood became incest
And tackles turned to resentment

Without a mother to berate
We shook our heads at one another
And I was to discover
You’d rather crucify then lie.

Since then, we have been
Beaten down and
Lost and found parts of ourselves.

Yet I’m still hidden, still forbidden.
And after lust, collecting dust.

Lira E. Skenderi

I must be the only working student
Not looking forward to the summer

Definitely not the unbearable heat
Humidity, frizzy hair
And all with no one to help you along.

Definitely not the lonesome nights
Ending with the arrival of the glowing, tan
Faces of my sisters’, returning from a party.

Definitely not the awkwardness of my
Pale nearly-nude body, like a badly-rolled joint
Somebody please, smoke me up, smoke me up
And let my numbing remains drift away into the night breeze.

Eat, Sleep, Flee.

i can’t stop
won’t stop eating
sleeping
fleeing from :

the food, the chocolate, the carrots even,
are out to get me…

my jaws, my saliva, my taste
are collaboratively working to destroy me…

and my bed is
a prison, is a hole, is a box
and my bed is collapsing on me.

then the food, the chocolate, even the carrots again
(They’re just out to get me)

Then, the lock
and the rug
and the toilet
are welcoming
in my erasing of indulgence

my body, my will, my discipline
have given up on me.

and I’m left
in this prison, in this hole, in this box
with no choice but to
eat
sleep
and flee.