Golnoosh Nour is a poet, prose writer, and lecturer. She’s the author of The Ministry of Guidance and other stories – shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021. Her work has also appeared in Granta, Spontaneous Poetics, and Columbia Journal amongst others. She has co-edited Magma 80 and an anthology of contemporary queer writing forthcoming from Muswell Press.
waiting for my girlfriend to come to me
waiting for my girlfriend to come for me
waiting for my girlfriend to laugh at me – so I can weep
waiting for my test results to rescue me
waiting for my boyfriend to put on his lipstick and suck me
waiting for my boyfriend to don his dress and leave
waiting for my country to let me exist
waiting for any country to let me exist
waiting for my employers to pay me
waiting for socialism to breathe
waiting for my wounds to heal
waiting for my relatives to ignore me
waiting for my parents to spoil me
waiting for my siblings to admit
waiting for my friends to vanish – so I can write an award-winning elegy
waiting for my lovers to tell me I’m their one and only as I leave
waiting for my favourite writers to read me
waiting for my favourite writers to ravish me
waiting for my publishers to prioritise me
waiting for my critics to patronise me
waiting for my words to transcend mediocrity
waiting
for the rain to drown me
for the storm to assault me
for spring to come clean
for the moon to bleed
for the autumn to revive me
for the trees to fall on me
waiting for myself to
reach me.
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