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‘Won’t You Come Out Tonight?’ by Anis Mojgani

At the top of the hill is a small but very tall house.

The boys in town go there

to try and knock out the highest windows.

They do this to impress the girls they drag up there with them.

The girls smile and whisper

while the boys pretend to fight.

The boys believe the louder their body is the brighter their hearts will look

-they push each other and jump into the air.

They make fists. They play fight,

and imagine what it means to be scared.

The girls laugh at this because they imagine the same thing

but in a different way. The girls do this to hide

the quiet libraries of curiosity they hold in their chests.

They pretend to know how the world works,

that the boys are silly and know too much about nothing.

The girls pick up rocks to show how one throws something with weight.

The boys shrug this off.

They are not impressed or pretend not to be.

But the book on the inside of their skin is bound

of the same trembling papers the girls are made of.

Neither of them yet know

what the shapeless water of love is,

anything they hold tightly falls between their fingers.

They are wet. But their hearts

have begun to quicken.

And run six footed.

And dance

around the fire.

And in certain hours of touching

feel sparks flying out of them.

They watch and whisper. The few times they hear the distant breaking of glass from up on high, little trees inside their chests uproot themselves and become small but very tall houses with brand new windows placed in their walls waiting for the world to break its way inside.

This is why they come to the house -

to show how far their bodies can send something into time.

To show how far into the dark they can hurl the earth.

To make sing some small rock pitched perfect on accident.

Buy and read more of Anis Mojgani’s work from his most recent book, ‘The Feather Room’ here and watch him perform some of his works here!