I Hunt Men at Night
I hunt men at night
keeping pace and following close
in tandem step
footsteps swallowed in his echoes
pausing at crossings
going against the red
unbeknownst to him
that he is prey.
I get such pleasure
from his security
trotting along happily
headphones blasting
never thinking to look behind
to press pause
to listen
to the second set of echoing steps
not calculating the geometry
of light and shadow fall
not thinking to call a friend as an auditory escort
not thinking to dive into the closest Späti
and strike up a safety barrier conversation.
He does not think of such things
and I grow
from his ignorant obliviousness
because you see
I hunt men at night.
For they have had the privilege of safety for too long.
I will hunt them and take this from them.
I follow him home
and watch him undress
fully
clothes and armor
and then
I
wait,
follow,
hunt
until that fateful day
where we meet by
happenstance
and have a conversation
where I implant my words
and we fuck open his vulnerabilities
and I rip out this ugliness
until he is empty
and then I leave
because I hunt men at night
and you don’t fuck
with a dead woman.
Pretentious Bitch
I love the sound of my own voice
step aside, get behind
below me
increase the power
tone, volume, inflection,
remove the filter
and let it all pour out.
I would like to see
you
try and stop
ME.
I love myself now
so much so
I like my strut, my gut,
My hands, plans,
My smarts, stupids, and the in-betweens.
My mind is my closest companion,
my ego my cockiest friend.
What more do I need,
your sorrowful plead,
So I can make the same mistake again?
No. I have ME.
Poems by A.E. Sadeghipour
Header Image by A.E. Sadeghipour
A.E. Sadeghipour is a doodling Iranian-American with a Surrealist outlook. She co-founded the Berlin Diaspora Society and teaches workshops for the Women Writing Berlin Lab. She won the Sherry Debrowski Prize for Best Feminist Multi-Genre Fiction writer in 2009. Her work has been featured in: the Berlin based magazine The Wild Word: “Dream a Little Dream” (2018), Berlin and Her Places (2018), KCRW’s “Holiday Story Telling Special” (2018), The V Series Poetry Anthology by Picture Show Press (2019) and much more. Some of you may already be familiar with her work as she has been making her way through the Berlin literary circuit. And if you are not, well then, we most definitely have to meet, and here is my strange little world: www.awerfjil.com.
