Memory of Famine

By Hanna Pachman

Every time I moved my bow on the violin,
my wrists said, do not sing.  
I could not hear the words coming out of my mouth.
There was no more room to ask for love. 
I was run by a never ending 
list of internists, who told me when to blink.

A revolution happened, when a boy
gave me a platter of showing up 
and proved to me that invisible illnesses  
are hard to notice for the average human. 
He was the light coming 
in through the trees in a graveyard.

My country persecuted him
for not hugging my head enough
when it was buried in sandbags.

There is a museum full of times 
my eyes didn’t spin in and out of my brain 
every other hour. I could stay up until two am 
to stalk a crush online, read without a blurry 
pause, or do handstands in the dark.

Hanna Pachman is a poet, whose work has been published in The MacGuffin, Wine Cellar Press, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Indolent Books, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. Originally from Connecticut, she currently hosts and curates a monthly poetry event, "Beatnik Cafe" in Los Angeles which has been running since 2018. Hanna was an Assistant Editor for the poetry magazine, Gyroscope Review for two years. She has been a featured poet at the California Poppy Festival, the KGB Bar, Cobalt Poets, and the Poetry Circus.