Power
Power is when you take the last fish finger instead of splitting it.
Power is watching The Matrix when no one really wanted to but you said so,
you said the first one was the best one and you were wrong but we all watched it and agreed.
Power is you hanging up first.
Power is saying jump, saying smile, saying stop and I do.
Power is your voice not wobbling, it’s your confrontations intended and not forced as a last resort.
It’s your hair soft and your skin clear,
your waist thin and your skirt short.
It's your legs.
It's going to sleep after an argument.
It's not worrying.
It's not a brain spiral,
it's a brain orchard.
It's remembering the time you were blissful and saying to yourself
Look how blissful you are.
Remember it,
Hold it in your hand like an oyster shell because you'll need it when mother of pearl turns craggy and is covered in barnacles.
It’s your body making salve, not salt.
Power is when you want something and you say so.
You say I want it I don't want to share it it's mine I want it it's mine
I deserve it it's mine I earned it's mine it's mine it's not yours, it's mine.
Power is not saying sorry when someone pushes their cart into yours at the supermarket.
Power is calling customer service and complaining.
Power is making phone calls and taking phone calls.
Power is the reason I say I don't know when I do.
It’s the reason I shave my arms
and the reason I have to leave at 12.
I have to kiss both cheeks.
I have to go to the wedding.
I have to look beautiful
but I don't feel it.
I have to speak with my eyes.
I have to be silent with my words.
It’s when I tear out all the mirrors from my house
and replace them with animatronic slabs of lead called kin, called father
called The Boy.
Power is not interior monologues.
Fajer Taqi is a 25-year-old writer from Bahrain. She has a degree in English and American Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Kent, but has been writing since the age of 12. Her poems tend to revolve around fruit, humans and the suspiciously mundane.