looking back, everything is sepia to me now:

the pills, the shaking, the undressing, your neck

in the shadow of the lost night, the pills, your hair

cut over the bathroom sink, the broken front door,

the cigarettes sleeping in the makeshift ashtray, the pills,

your crooked front tooth, the sunset smeared on the windows,

the miles ticking by until the odometer sputtered and choked,

 glittering pieces of the last mirror we recognized ourselves in.

tired of counting how far I would run to catch you, the pills, the pills, the pills,

how young we were, how wild, how tired, how loud
 in our aching,

how insistent the world stop to listen to our hearts smashing against the ground like

glittering pieces of the last mirror we recognized ourselves in.

—–

Fortesa Latifi is a 22-year old poet. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and calls the desert home. Her first book, This Is How We Find Each Other, was published through Where Are You Press in 2014 and her second book, We Were Young, was published through Where Are You Press in 2015. She hopes it reminds you of being young and having lipstick smudged on your teeth. Her work has been featured in Persona, Words Dance, Femrat, Kosovo 2.0, Rising Phoenix, Human Parts, Mend, and To Write Love On Her Arms. She is currently a contributing editor at Words Dance Magazine. She hopes you find something you need in her work.