By: Jordan Nishkian
Instead, it’s a lack of melanin,
translucent atmosphere revealing
layered topographies: lapis and cerulean.
You used to have pigment like mine—
gifts from lands of overbearing sun—
now you are the tones of sunshine and water.
Perhaps, swimming in your ocean,
waves seeped into the pools of your irises.
No burning, stinging crimson, they filled,
drank; only dripping when you miss home,
the place I could remind you of
with my body—the shape and shade of shoreline,
with my eyes—basins of basalt and clay.
Jordan Nishkian is an Armenian-Portuguese writer based in California. Her work has been published in Overachiever Magazine, The Kelp Journal, the New Plains Review, The Yellow Arrow Journal, The Plentitudes, and more. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Mythos literary magazine and has recently published her first novella.