I REGRET (AFTER JOE BRAINARD)

SAHAR MURADI

I regret the parakeets of gossip.

I regret the way fear nested in the seashells of my mind.

I regret saying yes to your body and departing mine.

I regret not excusing myself, not leaving, not pausing, not walking away, not taking a break, not peeing, not eating enough, not laughing out loud, not not pulling my skirt down.

I regret not writing it down.

I regret saying I love you when I was terrified of you.

I regret swallowing the words.

I regret collecting measuring sticks.

I regret running away when Madar handed me the receiver to hear Bobo’s breath sweeten the ocean from Peshawar.

I regret taking the cheese off the pizza. I regret mispronouncing my own name for the glass of your face.

I regret not dancing, not throwing parties, I mean real parties.

I regret not creating more shit, shitty shit, not giving a fuck, a fucking fuck.

I regret trying to impress all the hims: silverfish

I regret sleeping with the past, tonguing the future, slipping through this one precious hollow.

Sahar Muradi is a NYC-based writer, performer, and educator. She is the author of the chapbook [ G A T E S ] (Black Lawrence Press), co-author of A Ritual in X Movements (Montez Press), and co-editor of One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature (University of Arkansas Press). Sahar is a founding member of the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association and has been the recipient of the Stacy Doris Memorial Poetry Award, the Himan Brown Poetry Award, and a Kundiman Poetry Fellowship, among others. She dearly believes in the bottom of the rice pot. saharmuradi.com