I loved the lie I loved lying
next to the winter I lived
beside the lie lying thin & white.
I loved lying beside the tides.
He let me drive the winding
canyon to Malibu. I let him unwind.
I loved being alive the winter I lay
so close to loving I thought I’d die.
Jessica Abughattas was born and raised in California. Her debut book, Strip, won the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and will be published by University of Arkansas in 2020. She is a Kundiman fellow and a graduate of the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing program. Her poems appear in Waxwing, The Journal, Best of the Net 2019, and elsewhere.