Salma Deera Quotes

when i love, it happens almost all at once.
it is inconsiderate, unrefined -
a child screeching in a supermarket
it's a thunderclap.
it is a small village blackout.
it is aphrodite rising from the sea foam, fully formed.

Take back your rib, Eve cries.
I didn't want it. I never did. It is weighing me down.

My love translated sounds like a dead language.

you are suitable for my skin type-
my life type
my heart type.

it's like this:
say there's a whole room of people and you're somewhere in the middle of them all.
i walk in and i see you, but you don't suddenly become the only person in the room. god no. you become the room. you are the room.

i want to discover myself.
i want to destroy myself.
i want to be a secret that nobody but i can ruin.

i am a human body turned inside out.
my soft skin is saved for me alone.

in your dream, you are jealous of tragedies.
and the truth is, we all want our own tragedy,
because life is pale without it.
we want the teeth, the screaming.
the survival
that comes with it.

but tell me, who was it that made you dangerous?

it was no one.

it was me.


it was everyone.

in astronomy class, the muse urania angrily watches a panel of men talk about the wonders of the stars as though they created them.

love is just a synonym for absinthe.
absinthe is a synonym for 'i don't
know what i'm doing anymore.

you will rise.
and are you less of a woman for this? no
what is woman?
woman is this - enduring.
listen girl, you will survive this–you will.
but what fool said you had to do it silently?
here is a tip - scream

she says to me:
'if you want to hurt a man, you don't kill
the man. you kill what he loves.'
i nod.
and then i ask her: 'so how do you hurt a woman?'
she answers:
'my child, a woman is hurting from the moment of birth.

some boys will give you the
sun so you can bloom.
but other boys will give you the sun
to watch you melt.

the centre of every poem is this:
i have loved you. i have had to deal with that.