GOOD NOISE-CANCELING
HEADPHONESby Paasha Motamedi

i'm up again
it's 4am
i think about you 
i think about my consumerism 
and then 
when i am most in between 
awake and asleep 
(the time i dream the most) 
then still 
i find time 
to judge the way 
you are

defects of character or as my
sponsor calls them
liabilities
allow the father voice to live on 
despite being unheard 
for ten sober years and the mother voice to still
remain unable to penetrate
the swollen membrane i have within
preserved perfectly every 
narcissistic injury incurred between
1990 and 2003

terrible things happen to my brothers
terrible things that have nothing 
to do with 1990 to 2003

i find a camaraderie
in that life has taken from them

when will life take from you
will it actually take dying
will it actually take anything?

[POETRY]
[07/24/25]
PAASHA MOTAMEDI is an Iranian-Indonesian multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. His work has been published in the New York Times, The LA Times, Hyperallergic, Christie’s Magazine, and Unemployed Magazine.