Albania
Eni Saliaj
Nestled in a hole of mountains, with its rainbow waters and walking boulders. Its nights stretched to mornings, days imploding in on one another–a calendar made of mismatched days. Wrinkled land breathing much like the wrinkles on my Gjushi’s face when his words twist out air. He warns of the venom dogs in the dark. When the nocturnal curtains drape above me, flickering with twinkles of already dead stars, the balcony floating four stories above the mountains grants me vision. I now see the venom dogs, and the way they tear, the carnage. Do these dogs see the rainbow waters? Or are they sitting on their balconies and wishing out of their hell?
Eni Saliaj is a recent Rutgers University graduate and is from Bergen County, New Jersey. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in information technology and informatics and a minor in creative writing. During her time at Rutgers, she fell in love with poetry and found it is a way to express herself and her creativity in a way she is passionate about. This poem remains a reflection of what life is like for Albanian diaspora from her perspective as the child of two Albanian immigrants.
Eni wrote this poem in a course taught by Joanna Fuhrman, who selected the piece for inclusion in WHR.