dream by the author

desire

zaria rashay
2 min readNov 19, 2021

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a prose

as a young girl, she would hide her laugh in her paws — collecting them there. she thought a cuffed hand was the best place to keep her laugh safe from the vultures that circled overhead. one time she laid on her back refusing to wince at the welts girlhood was forming in her honor.

she laid there admiring the way the brown frames of the vultures darkened her path to the sun. she couldn’t tell you how many there were. maybe there were two. or twenty. or two thousand. it wasn’t like she cared enough to count them in their cyclical flight.

but she did fantasize about them coming close enough that she could count the feathers that made up the rosewood of their frames. of how their beaks could break into her compromised being. she wondered what would be set free once they invaded and devoured her insides.

she decided that’s what womanhood would be like. to be constantly bursting open. she held fantasies about taking up grand amounts of space unapologetically. she had watched flowers do it and had grown to envy their freedom. so she practiced saying her name in the mirror. tried to attach an ‘i love you’ at the end.

she watched her mother and older sister. tried to mimic their movements into womanhood, but she failed at miming. plus on her, their costumes fitted like loose skin — foreign. she wondered if the vultures overhead worried about the same things she did. or were they free the way she wanted to be.

i want to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for taking the time to read my work. it really means the world to me. feel free to clap, comment, and/or highlight; your support is genuinely valued on my end. if you are curious on how to and/or willing to further support me. you can buy me a pen. i also value good ol’ fashion word of mouth, so please feel free to share my piece and consider exploring this blog post. thank you again for reading this far.

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zaria rashay
zaria rashay

Written by zaria rashay

the nighttime musings of a poetess. ig @zariarashay youtube: zariarashay

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