In the mirror, the oil-painted portrait
of a stranger
locks eyes
and smiles back at me.
Each plastered smile eats at my soul,
ripe with cherry lip gloss
and empty eyes.
In the space behind my irises,
Death waits for me
in a wildflower field
fertilized with the expectations I
eat for breakfast.
Heirloom jewelry sits in
the heart shaped box on my nightstand,
taunting me—
for it knows my blood
is not made of the same gold
as my mother
and my mother’s mother.
Jealousy grips at the depths of me,
claws ripping out my insides—
every chipped nail another piece of me
gone to waste.
Blind to ephemerality,
I grasp Death by her beautiful, cold hand;
Finally, I taste
freedom herself
deadly as a lighter
and a god-soaked floor.
Athena Haq (she/her) is a Pakistani-Bangladeshi American from Houston, Texas, and a first year at the University of Rochester. She is an alumni of the Creative Writing department of the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. She has previously been published in Truant Lit and The HOYA Magazine. Inspired by the works of Anne Carson, she strives to bridge the gap between language and the indescribable through her poetry and works of multimedia art.
