Sohayl Vafai
Distances
If I am an acorn, I can take root. Or a squirrel can bury me in its chest of dirt. I can go home. Or I can look for my mother in the eyes of strangers. She once said, “Sexual orientation is a lifestyle.” We do not speak. The gray gauze of grief wraps itself around my throat. Grief is foreign, seizes senses, asks for release, to fertilize at the feet. Its tendrils slippery, I pull and dream my body taking root.
Sohayl Vafai is a lawyer, poet, and painter. He is a former member of the D.C. Youth Poetry Slam Team and has performed at the Kennedy Center, the Atlas Performing Arts Center, and other venues in the Washington, D.C., area. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.