About Farside Review
Established in 2020, Farside Review is an online literary magazine that seeks to uncover the infinitely faceted nature of our art, our love, and our tragedies. Farside Review is passionate about the “inertia of memories that smear into your futurity, your crumpled edges of identity, your old stories threaded into new skins.” The journal wants to see our faces: “the ones you wear, the ones you hide, the ones you hold onto instead of wiping away.”
If you have such a story to tell, head over to Farside Review and explore the magazine in its literary entirety!
What is Athazagoraphobia?
Athazagoraphobia is a fear of forgetting someone or something, as well as a fear of being forgotten.
I first came across it in a book I read early last year. I cannot currently recall the name of the book, but it was a lyrical read about a young Chinese American woman and her immigrant mother. The pair came from a long line of calligraphy shop owners, but this young woman wanted to open a restaurant. Although she eventually pursues her dream, it shatters her relationship with her mother, who has long lived with athazagoraphobia.
I found the concept of athazagoraphobia fascinating and, after finishing the book, was inspired to write this piece. The writing and the title felt perfect together, and it brings me great joy to know this prose piece has found a home at Farside Review.
The following is a short excerpt of my prose poem Athazagoraphobia, published at Farside Review.
When I weep, I weep quartz crystals. You have collected them since before I was born in a turquoise-studded bowl of your ancestor’s making, where she smoldered incense and the smoke carried her prayers to the afterlife.
Eight may be a lucky number, but an hour of tears yields eighty and I have never counted them, but you swear you have and how can you not have filled the bowl by now? as I weep, and darkness closes in?
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