11-02-2026​

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Athena Nassar​

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THE PERFORMANCE

someone wishes me a blessed solar return, and later that night
i blow out my candles, little wisps of smoke dancing around
the puffed up soufflé, sometimes, i wish to be the man in the strip
club with his hands behind his head or rather, the woman popping
her perfectly round ass against his lap, a big ass planet orbiting
to the beat of Megan Thee Stallion singing body-ody-ody-ody-ody.
i wonder what it would feel like to undress myself to that kind
of praise, to squat naked in the center of someone's universe
and say don't touch. on the streets of paris, the woman they called
the Hottentot Venus was purchased by a man who showcased her
beside a rhinoceros. those who passed would gawk at her full
body draped in ostrich feathers, stick their hands through the cage
to squeeze the fat on her hips. they pulled at her brown flesh
as if she had the thick hide of the rhinoceros itself. she did not
get to undress herself. this was done by the men who paid to strip
her of her feathers. i do not wear feathers. when i give myself
to someone, i am the one who gives myself back. when i blow
out my candles, everyone sitting wide-eyed around the table,
there's a part of me that wishes to light them and blow them
out, just to light them again. after the applause, i drag the knife
through the soufflé and pull it out, custard dripping from the blade.

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COLONIZATION AS SCI-FI

I like to believe my father is a member of a suburban cult
made of middle-aged men. They all smoke foreign cigars
 

and talk politics as if the government isn't one white man
pouring acrylic paint on the window
 

of an artificially lit greenhouse. The TV is turned to some
kind of sports channel to give them something to watch
 

or drool over, and I can't help but notice them from a distance,
gathered around the TV like livestock. Then I remember
 

the time my uncle said we are all living in a dystopia
of sorts. Of course, my uncle is a walking conspiracy
 

theory, but I picture this: A table full of George Orwells
choking on jalapeño poppers. A realm where children
 

slip into television screens and are never seen again until
year 3000. What I didn't know is that my uncle meant
 

something much darker: They'll burn a cross on your yard
if they don't want you in that small town in Florida.
 

I look at my father and wonder how many crosses he has
burning for him in this small town brimming with livestock,
 

people with pitchforks waiting for us to leave. I am treading
on a breeding ground for want and a hotbox for consumption.
 

Perhaps this is why I ate fluorescent lights as a child.
Not to glow, but to conquer the glowing.
 

JELLYFISH WASTELAND

She leaves a scarlet love mark in the shape of one hundred rays bursting
from the surface of my skin. My body, an instrument for her to play. Her
body resembling broken strings of a guitar, she hunts me by my vibrations.
Her iridescent mouth hovering over me like a spacecraft about to land. My
hair tentacles braided with hers, we waltz. I mouth one, two, three bubbles
escaping my lips, and we are immortal, floating with the comets.
 

-from Little Houses

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Athena Nassar is an Egyptian-American writer from Atlanta, Georgia. She is the author of Little Houses (Sundress Publications, 2023).