If you mourn everything all the time

the backseat of your car, mix CDs, the half-moon,
men

you’ll forget you are alive, electric
Forget you have a heartbeat.

Here is how you forget
you are alive: pick at the peeling
leather seats, swallow
the chipping paint, bathe
in the oil drip drip
dripping.

When you see God behind the wheel
of a passing car, close your eyes.

The headlights
are blinding anyway.

You pray to be reborn,
viscous, crying, found.

But return
to the same body
over and over again.

When the men
follow you over the center console.
You praise them with your mouth.

They tell you,
You look like a saint.
Too holy to let live.





Mea Cohen is a writer from Palisades, NY, and now based in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her work has appeared in West Trade Review, OKAY Donkey, Big Whoopie Deal, and more. She was nominated for best micro-fiction in 2024 and 2026. She earned her MFA in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University, where she was a Contributing Editor for The Southampton Review. She is the Founder and Editor in Chief for The Palisades Review.

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