Things get old when I’m not looking.
I get old and big.
I hurt children without knowing.
Someone’s always hurting because of me and I must greet
doorknobs, understand
in a chair, pity
between floors, and mourn
into paper plates.
Madina Tuhbatullina is a poet from Turkmenistan, whose work has been published or is forthcoming in Anacapa Review, Perceptions, Ponder Review and elsewhere. Madina is an alumna of the Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop and Tupelo Press Manuscript Workshop. Currently, she is a Creative Writing MFA candidate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.