SARAH SOPHIA YANNI

the yanni girls

the tug of a sibling is a reminder to never stand still. this is a squishy dilemma. performing as an older sister is a meditation on exhaustion, and keeping it together makes me go extinct.

you called me and your voice was flat, and I turned green. reutterance of past breath is still pain. you gestured across air, but I could only imagine it. the softer, unknown things are beacons of sanity during family dinner.

there is no one like you. if the world became imaginative space, our arms would still meet. after all, we used to share a room.

fingerprints trace our common vibration. my body moved first, but yours understood sooner. at some point each sibling takes back her own form. my throat coughs, and you think it’s music. a melody of excess humming at dawn.

family group chat

twenty-eight person family. translates to: twenty-eight person family group chat, screen overlapping tornados of english and spanish. my pants are vibrating. whats app is suffocating me. under the same lunar air, technology provides a cradle, while cross-country distance grows dormant. my tia tries to send a gif, something about jesus, a video, something about humor, or satire, or maybe it’s serious. family is a formal matter, demanding hands and heart, demanding replies on whats app or else unspoken care is not dictated. (english not necessary.) my tongue is subjected to line breaks, text breaks, the sound of a sonar ding. my pants keep vibrating. the sound of sad music from a video my mom sent with a dog whining, casting canine eyes towards my own blue light gaze. low battery, my face is drained of blood. I turn into a stone. calcified girls cannot reply.

bilingual

valley girl valley girl
i hate the beach
sun morphs flesh, ache
gritty sand on my big
toe, gross!

pot of beans
strain twice for foam
mom chops
a mexican onion, cries for home
homemade oily speckle

avoidant on
ventura boulevard
teen shoes
black chewed gum
eyes avert
hi how’ve you been

$50 for international calls
in january the words dry
spanish tv
cacophonous!

Sarah Sophia Yanni is a Mexican-Egyptian writer in Los Angeles. She is the author of the chapbook ternura / tenderness (Bottlecap Press) and her work has been published by DUM DUM zine, Metatron Press, homonym journal, and others. She is currently the Editorial & Development Fellow with ArtChangeUS and is pursuing an MFA from CalArts. Find her online at www.sarahsophiayanni.com.