but why do I have to
explain. why can’t I just wear
my blue lipstick and be ironic
artsy and eccentric. why do
I have to remind them what they’ve
done to my land. or why sanctions
are bad. why do I have to
be the teacher rising from the grave
of Politics. why should I be the one shouting
we need transgression, darling, not progression
as though I were the chosen one
why did I consume my youth in
sad universities to confirm what I knew
all along. to tediously intellectualise
my instinct – when I could’ve spent this time
burning a bank, or a church, or even a mosque
where dollar prays that queers will die.
why do I have to explain
why a lunar boy in a dress who murmurs
my art hardens his nipples makes my cunt
jump. why do I have to justify?
why can’t I just open
The Picture of Dorian Gray, page 155
‘To define is to limit.’
and just stare as though I am gazing at
Basil’s painting – but instead
I am the one ageing. why do I have to
inform my father of my sex life when my mother
the sculptor carved my flesh for years
so I’d be as cultured as her dusty library, but she just made
me a bruised slut. why did I desire her
dead like the ultimate Freudian cliché so
I could have my father to myself. but now
that she’s gone, my father and I
are still apart, cutting each other, yielding blood
and we both think the fox that visits
my girlfriend’s garden is my mother.

My Mother Is My Lover

I’m so imperious I could be the sun, but
I’m only the son of a smuggled sunflower, and my
fear of loss. Paralysis dominates and I think I am done
palpitating. The despondent prince of the furious valley
of sex. But today is heaven I’m Daddy’s perfect girl
When I tell him I’m tired, he snickers,
‘But look at your beautiful face!’
I glance at my sallow countenance and swallow my tears
We stare into our screens, send pixelated kisses
I feel like a failed piece of art, an orphaned desire
At thirty-one I still want to be Daddy’s little girl
like when I was eight and came second in a math test
I was over the sun until father said,
second is great, but you could’ve been the first.
He teases my brother, You need to learn from her!
She always had it in her!

and flashes me his artificial teeth
My brother giggles but narrows his eyes. I smile it off as if
Mother were rampaging again
I have won a few wars but do not feel like
The victor my father raised and my mother despised.

Two hours later, I’m spread on a sinking sofa
listening to my lover call me a ‘narcissist’ for the twenty ninth time
I produce the fur scarf she knitted for my birthday –
a gold fox, wrapping around my throat, tighter
by the second. She is screaming for me to stop
I can feel my intestines erupting out of my throat
When I taste her tears, I let go.

Maybe it is true what they say:
In the end, every boy marries his mother.

introvert schizo is a #mood or Cheap Plastic Thoughts

there are things beneath you, a cheap plastic table, an unmade bed
viral thoughts that spread in your blood, like wine, drugs, and #mood, cheap
things you feel but cannot claim: shameless shame, your filtered life on Insta,
your girlfriend fancying your best friend, your desire to beat up both of them,
your dead mother’s sex life, your urge to fuck
a random boy on public transport, dominating
his delicate bones with your thumping cunt, these thoughts are all
beneath you. behave! you’re sort of educated and somehow privileged
lucky, even #blessed, visceral violence is beneath you, useless
degrees in useless subjects, art and literature, ephemeral
friendships, tedious romances, are not beneath you, books
that no one else reads have been written for you, carbs
are beneath you, being vile and drunk is beneath you, smile! you have everything!
your girlfriend screams and everybody else agrees. this weirdness whatever it is
is beneath you. why do you have to ruin everything for cheap feelings that are beneath you? there are things you’re not allowed to articulate: your sympathies
for convicts, communists, dictators, your nostalgia for libertine cities
that don’t exist embarrassing appetite for pop music for
hierarchical power are all beneath you, jealousy
is beneath you, it’s a distant town in a country you’re not allowed to love,
but you’re social-media sexy, be happy, wanting
to be worshipped is a cheap plastic table, legs up in the air, piercing your skin, an ugly
dagger your sexual attraction to your sibling is
beneath you, your lack of faith in anything other than your ego
your feigned intellect, your paranoia
that you parade as passion, this paranoia, this poem
is beneath you, holding you like a cheap plastic seat with wobbly feet.

you swing your cold legs in the summer air, pretending
to enjoy the heat even though your specific skin can only feel cold and no heat,
you pretend to sweat, to wear a little black dress, to celebrate, you listen, this is just
another random party, but it hurts like a terrible poem, just another social commitment
to abhor and attend, and you water your tree with alcohol and convince
yourself you sound sane and it’s okay that all your interesting conversations
happen inside your head; times like these close your eyes and guide
yourself to an empty bathroom, fist the mirror like it’s a blond
boy on public transport,
then slit your wrists;

Golnoosh Nour studied English Literature at Shahid Beheshti University and completed a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at Birkbeck. Her short story collection The Ministry of Guidance was recently published by Muswell Press. Her debut poetry collection Sorrows of the Sun was published in 2017. She has been widely published and platformed both in the UK and internationally, including on the BBC and Granta. Golnoosh teaches creative writing in London and has a monthly radio show called Queer Lit on Soho Radio Culture.

*Image credit: Untitled portrait by Rimel Neffati