Dena Afrasiabi's fiction has appeared in JMWW, Prick of the Spindle, Weave Magazine and the anthology Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian American Writers among others. She has an MFA from Rutgers-Newark University and is currently a PhD candidate in Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures at the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Austin, TX and co-edits the journal Elsewhere Lit with poet Nandini Dhar.
Go to support groups. Sit in circles and think about how much you fucking hate support groups. Listen to people cry for their own ill family members. Feel your chest tighten with anger toward them, toward their raw displays of sadness, their easy tears. Fantasize about screaming, one long, terrifying scream like your brother’s screams, the ones that summon cops and ambulances and nervous neighbors who pretend to be working inside their garages, who pretend…
