Eye, آی by Roya Zendebudie

Look at
the word  چشم  how
it resembles the eye
how it curves and tears, then slides
down, dead

⬤

Hold it in your hand, the word, and what it is, turn it around, چشم.

It’s not a word but the performance of a word, of what it wants to be but fails, a failure so intense it bursts the word wide open: the curve, barely begun, erupts and melts into points—light points, rain drops: three up, three down. It slides, it falls. It’s the vision of an eye, raw, open, slashed. Flooded into, rained on. Tromped and thrashed.

It’s dead, which almost means it’s alive.

⬤

Mein Gott, ich habe kein Dach über mir, und es regnet mir in die Augen.

⬤

Eye, I, Eye, I.

چشم holds two meanings in persian, eye and yes, I will obey.

The latter, unlike the english eye, is not an I but a negation of an I, an erasure of self for the sake of the other. The sound of eye for persian speakers is an interjection, used reflexively when the speaker is hurt; it’s a vocalized pain.

Aye, Aye, Captain.

⬤

Continue reading the full story in SAND 25.