Gone Lawn
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Gone Lawn 27
Winter, 2018

New Works

Nooks Krannie

A Therapeutic Flushing of a Body Part with a Stream of Liquid


Naima is walking down the world's smallest road. She's holding bright red bubbles of irrigation water in both her hands, pushing them close to her chest. The smell of her cartilage is sour lemons, she caresses the outer layer of soft bubbles and natural salt engulfs her trachea.

Naima is standing under a blooming tree on the world's smallest road. The tree shelters crimson clarinets and birds nest inside the hollowness. The iOS on her hand is uploading a deaf whistle through barks, through woods, through her skin for a better soundtrack for a less heavy life.

Naima is making room in her head for Olivia. Two earth worms are crawling on the surface of Naima's shoes and then they stop and rest on the white star of her ankle, one of them looks up and stares with shiny beads. Naima is taking questions about Olivia. She closes her eyes and inhales in a different voice.

"Olivia is calling herself a whore. Her waist is wrapped in skinned cows with fake labels, her gender is herself, again, her mouth opens for a while before swallowing the mud and bubbles of a big man. Olivia is a dream with triangles and pine needles for a fiery star, she smells of steak and her holes feel larger than mine. Olivia is a dream in mine. Olivia is no more a whore than my blood away from my vagina. She always appears when I've taken pills to cast sleep, tonight, a jelly doughnut and sugar coated lips. I'm struggling to convince myself then I douse my teeth in water, brush them clean, fluoride. I smell of daily mint and frozen pizza, naked, there's a pile of cheese and pepperoni melt on my plate corner ready for her mouth. I've been on these pseudo lavender pills for three years now, they're fat placebo trapped in romantic gelatin, a reminder that nothing is controlled, by me in my all-flesh glory — washing and growing out organs and wounds to baptize a fragile skeleton, farming genitals, thinking and fucking each other, feeding "why nots" in cold bottles. Olivia is my pretend self that washes in open garden, her body is anything but ashamed and she's a whore because she says she is. She lives in my head and I dream about her when dried blood makes a spider's web among my pussy hair, I'm a product of over the counter capitalism designed to make extra dark eye bags for my extra dark. Eyes."

Naima is trying hard to speak without moving teeth. Naima prefers to be dubbed in a single female voice rather than have subtitles for her foreign voice. Naima tweets her thoughts and then deletes them before internet can hurt her.

Cellophane covers the world's smallest road, Naima is standing under the empathy of a small moonlight. Two worms leave Naima's body and birds give them a generic conclusion. Naima is sad that her body couldn't protect anything living and ordinary. Naima feels pain and she lets go of her hands, the salt becomes mucus inside her throat.

Naima is a human body on the world's smallest road, she is aware of the person of her own creature. Her body will always be bigger than her, a tangible object for external fingers and eyes, waiting for her to swallow with compassion.



Nooks Krannie is a Palestinian/Persian female writer from Montreal, Canada. Her most recent chapbook of poetry is "candied pussy" published by Thistlemilk Press. She tumbls at nkrannie.tumbler.com and instagrams @nookskrannie