LOVE INSTALLS — THE HEAD TECHNIQUE
My sophomore year of high school, my school
mandated therapist gives me a styrofoam head
to fill with kind words about myself. My father
waits in the parking lot only to stifle shrieks
at the no-eyed creature, two gauges on its head.
My scalpel sharp nails comforting a new part
of myself Just the beginning I cut out of Cosmopolitan
he couldn’t read but knew I was trying something
not to be afraid of myself, the silence banged
from my frontal bone & still today down to my
jaw, a cavity for each night my father didn’t
check if my toothbrush was wet. Now proof
he never asked me to open my mouth.
Hajjar Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish poet. She spends most of her time avoiding running from herself.