in the other universe I’m white, skinbandaging my body. EverywhereI’m born a wound. Look how I gape. Look how the skinis an afterthought. I’d like to probe nowunderneath, examine the deeper tissue—that which shrieksand festers: the loud and unallowedsecrets of muscle and bone. In the other universeI’m an alchemist. Watch me turn white to wound to knifewatch me cut my faceinto the surface of the full moon. In every universeI break my god-given bodyinto something closer to Blackriot against what was given at birth—a nameand what else? what else could I seek to be but thisun-gender, seething in the dark? What else is there to dobut sense into the murk of fleshand become what I find there?
Parallel
Noor Jaber
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Copyright © 2025 by Noor Jaber.
Previously published in PRAISE TO LESSER GODS OF LOVE from Glass Poetry Press in 2019.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Noor (‘Ditee) is the Black, queer, and mad main characters of a rom com. A teaching poet, she writes through an intersectional lens that experiments with language and sound as conduits of emotional expression. Her themed virtual workshops create horizontal spaces to grapple with poetic inquiry in a rigorous, anti-elitist writing community.
An abolitionist, Noor writes to imagine the future she wants for her people into existence. She loves double meanings, creative punctuation, and words with “exquisite mouthfeel.” Noor is the author of Praise to Lesser Gods of Love, published by Glass poetry in 2019. Catch up with her work in The Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, phosphenes, DIAGRAM, and other print and digital publications. To learn more, visit Noor’s Instagram @noheroes_inlovepeoms.
Lilac Peril is a small D.C. publisher and literary journal founded by Andrea Morgan and Luke Sutherland. The project is inspired by the trans literary communities surrounding presses like Topside or Little Puss. We aim to center writing by trans authors and poets in a way that allows everyone involved to grow from the experience.
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