NINA MOUAWAD - POEMS

Nina Mouawad is a Lebanese poet and Master’s student of English Language and Literature at the University of Balamand. She spends her free time watching bad rom-coms while arguing with her dog. Her work has appeared in Act One: Cutting Edges. 

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From the diaries of a pillar of salt
​

​I wake up shaking from nightmares where
I fall for him again.
Wake up a couple months back
feeling in the dark to where his heart begins,
spilling over nightstands and toilet paper
to pool at his feet in the morning with
fingertips at the small of my back.
.
But I wake up. Knowing that
he laughed like nights were here to stay
now mornings take longer to live,
and I go through my days pretending
like I don’t know
that snot-dried sleeves sparkle.

An Ode to Frida’s Second Accident
​

​“I don’t get how you still love him after all of that, no,
how you still need him.
I thought you were a feminist.”
Because how dare I tie myself to a man who loved me,
but didn’t just love me.
Crawl back into his bed after the other had left crawling back
to where I other’d.
How dare I choose a metal band to a free hand,
choose to kneel for poetry
when I could stand for nothing.
How dare a bird love its cage,
how dare it sing in an open cage?


How dare a feminist choose?