Poetry: “gamma-aminobutyric acid or GABA”, Featuring Image: “Friend in Me”

gamma-aminobutyric acid or GABA

 

worry is another love, to worry is to love

sweet talismans of take care / be well 

not enough to guard against 

metal sharpened teeth biting down

on inner cheeks, salted salivary

shame flowing down through lips.

 

my mother’s love is worried

cuticles, scorched forearms 

forcing a plastic lid cracked open,

to peel back foil of never sour enough mast, 

tanged with thick prepped herbs that

radiate love, a worried radiation full

 

of sweet morsels to feed syrup down

your throat, raw short nails scoring 

the plain of mars, kindling flames

humming glassy eyed, worry sheared razor thin, 

roasted fat dripping hot, burning flesh,

wiping out wellbeing.

 

my mother’s love a sun small enough

to burn me, encompassing warmth, 

coppered hot and floral, mint alighting 

my tongue, irradiated comfort 

fleeting against the bordered

creases in our eyes.

 

crawled from the belly of my

father, my mother too wounded 

to carry me, a blazing sun crisping 

me brown, leaving a parched shell 

behind crumpled from intense radiation

blasting everything in its path.

 

mirror the way my love is worried, 

care tossed in worry wrapped 

around my figure, refreshed

to pink and blue plump little cakes

climbing to dream ourselves 

wicked, benzos bitter on our tongues.

 

unease dissolving sharp and metallic,

worry burned brightly away under

a chemical blank, a challenge forgotten.

 

Written By: Dena Rod

About the Author: Dena Rod is the Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editor for Homology Lit. Through creative nonfiction essays and poetry, Dena aims to illuminate their diasporic experiences of Iranian American heritage and queer identity, combating negative stereotypes of their intersections in the media. Catch them on Twitter @alightningrod, denarod.com, & on tour with Sister Spit this upcoming spring.

Visual Art “Friend in Me” By: Eunbin Lee

About the Artist: I am a student studying photography from Korea. Living in a new culture and environment of the United States, I try to express through pictures what I felt based on various daily experiences. I feel a sense of freedom by expressing it through my photographs rather than words. I hope people can feel the feelings that I want to convey through my photos.