Zohra Zafar: Erase It
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
My Father’s Daughter
my sisters love to compare me to my father as if I was born this way,
as if he didn’t mould me from blood-soaked clay, drilled a hole
into my skull while singing ballads of day-time paranoia, music
that swam past the watchful guard of my eardrum, settling deep
within subterranean night terrors. as though he had passed on his
briefcase of deoxyribonucleic secrets, carried by men in trench coats
to ensure similar levels of uncontrollable purple rage, the kind that
makes you gnash your teeth together and bursts through your chest
to suffocate your nearest acquaintance to death. as if I’d signed a
contract with the big guy in the sky to give me more than his
crooked nose and widow’s peak. as if I wouldn’t unravel my own
strings to undo the damage he’d done to the patchwork of my being.
as if I could sit in front of the nice lady in the Institute of Clinical Psychology
and tell her I’m going crazy and I know exactly why but to admit that
would be to admit I am a victim and to admit that would be to admit
I couldn’t prevent my own death. my sisters love to compare me to my
father as if I was born this way, as if I wouldn’t erase it from my memory
given the first chance to do so.
Zohra Zafar hails from the southeast region of Pakistan where she is currently on a gap year. She is interested in sexology and contributing to spreading sex education in an abstinence-only culture. When she isn't reading science fiction and erotica, she finds interactive ways to share her knowledge of the human body through social media. The poet has previously had her work published by Santa Clara Review and Marble Poetry magazines.
