I pretend populate my role models

in my dad’s place— to the point of his non-existence.

Life in the past, prepubescent times, is my only interest.

I used to build forts in the backyard, with my mother’s hijabs,

to hide from the daytime.

Missing all the beauty of the sunshine through the Tehranian smog.

And the bazaar dampened my agony

to leave as if love were a stolen commodity.

But I blamed the world to a small degree…

and I’ve never seen the sky cause I was too scared it would fall on me.