The Strike
I am building the morning from the debris
of a 3:00 PM strike. No blueprints—
just a scorched doorframe, a handful of teeth,
and the silver dust of Golestan mirrors
settling like toxic snow over a child’s
cold, half-eaten breakfast.
The air has a chemical weight today.
Not oxygen, but the residue of a voice note
cut mid-sob when the grid went dark.
I am the walls vibrating with the names
of the girls in Minab—one hundred
and seventy-five small ghosts
whose backpacks floated in the harbor
before their bodies were pulled from the dirt.
The sun is a structural defect.
It spills through the blast-shutter like lye,
bleaching the Persian silk until the garden
is as gray as a shroud.
Do not patch the ceiling. I need the smoke.
This is how we breathe while the horizon is liquid.
In the corner, I am the silence growing teeth.
I smell of diesel and the copper of a fresh wound.
Don't look for the signature of the man
who ordered the strike. Look for the way
the tea leaves settle in the cup,
forming the shape of a country
being erased from the map.
If your heart is still hitting your ribs,
you are the only monument.
I haven’t learned how to break—yet.