Sylvia

I held hands with your ghost
all through my seventeen,
guided by your words, a balm to my corroded soul

Take me through the crushing tides of seventeen
A deep and sumptuous thing, this cake you fed me
Normally I would spit it back out—

the sugared decadence of a thousand years
of patriarchy. But Anne said, They took you from me
With all the bells ringing

By Kimia Madani

Biography:

By day, Kimia Madani is a writer based in San Francisco, California. By night, she dreams of chasing the silvery cloud banks that hang above her favorite city and spinning in long, unhurried circles on the moon. She believes in writing to escape, define, and reinvent the exhilarating design of her own world. Also in the power of green hair and holographic shoes. The Luminary: A Collection of Poems is her first book.