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Momina Mela
​

Non-Resident Alien
 
I pull taut and change my style—go from
rib to female to opus fleshed with girl design
 
I glue a pair of eyes to the fridge and make them
see me as hey gorgeous/hey excuse me/hey listen
 
survive the narrative of skin on
skin on teeth, meaning: new york
 
myself in cheddar and egg yolk and become
my own baby, good and gentrified mouth
 
of erasures, bad strangers with candy subtracted
by kind strangers with loose change equals
 
to a drunk screaming hoe! behind me
to someone behind them, resulting in the formula:
 
non-resident alien+ drunk+ hoe = a cultural exchange
that social blaze of quarter dominicans, punks
 
and muslim ankles bared for god via prophets
via angels and whichever fella came before
 
to watch me sleep, dream pungent of silkworms
that smoke cigars on street corners, people watching
 
their slimy lives by so I wake up more bizarre
than usual, tasting of crawl to a hot new scene
 
I face the city, clenched teeth are the windows
to its soul, its got eyes at the back of its head




December Smog,  Lahore
 
I’m privileged enough to be sad and cool enough
to know it. I arrived home to find my city spun in guck
                       
and inflamed, each local on fire. I bathed under
a hot leaky faucet to turn my body less phobic
                       
to its person. My brain grew weird from pollution
and I spoke in oxides: I’m too cool to be privileged and
                       
my sadness knows it. My privilege is a cool sadness.
I’m sad and the dead crocuses in my garden are cooled
                        
in shallow grass. I know now that the bruises on my arms
are from knocking around in a dark room, gauzy in moonish
 
variety and not some mindless rupture that spills and spills
lunatic (the reason is in the meat). All my vindications
 
are alive and kicking from the inside, asking their mothers
to birth—my city hasn’t rained in months.
 
                                                                                    
 
 
Momina Mela is a Pakistani poet from Lahore. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, POETRY, Waxwing, Drunken Boat amongst others. She is an MFA candidate at NYU and currently lives in Brooklyn. Visit her here: www.mominamela.wordpress.com

 
 

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