I have sunken into the twin bed at my parents’ house. We are one and the same: the mattress and I, the ancient-ness of this bedroom, the loss of so many things, the having of so much and the knowing I have done nothing to deserve any of it. (i am so small, so not … Continue reading poetry// (bearing witness)
prose// coping mechanisms (come undone?)
sometimes I wonder if I didn’t do it to myself. the way I have always escaped to the imagination, taken the corners of my own mind as solace, only ever really trusted myself with the full color of my dreams. I wonder how fragile I have always truly been, within myself, the shell of a … Continue reading prose// coping mechanisms (come undone?)
prose// birth anniversaries and the witnessing of classrooms hallowing
I have felt it today, maybe for the first time in four years, maybe not, it is hard to recall. The texture of knowing, the feeling, “oh wow, this is what I have been doing for four years”. You know, the part of the Toni-Morrison-novel-reading-journey when you finally catch a glimpse of “it”: the arch, … Continue reading prose// birth anniversaries and the witnessing of classrooms hallowing
prose// stained glass and yard gazing
I wonder why I am unable to do the things that I need to do. It is astonishing the capacity of the human body, even more jarring the way anxiety can take a person and turn them to quicksand. Everything sinks in me. Nothing floats. I make everything I cradle in my mind for even … Continue reading prose// stained glass and yard gazing
prose// (if and) when may arrives
In the spring of my senior year of high school, I attended an accepted students’ day at Virginia state school, as I had done with all the schools I was considering for the following fall. That day, in the large basketball stadium, before the student body and all the guests, the president of the university … Continue reading prose// (if and) when may arrives
prose// seasonal produce
These days, winter comes angrily. Or maybe not. I project onto the weather sometimes, you know. Am I an onion? Strange question, I know. Obvious answers are evident, but who could possibly be that interested in the obvious?! I've thought about onions a lot. Vegetables that peel away, layer after layer, until there is nothing … Continue reading prose// seasonal produce
poetry// distance(d)
I want things I do not deserve. how awful to be choked by your own idle and uncertain hands? Maybe that is the punishment: longing with no reciprocity. it is impossible to know the dead the way I need to-- so take me to Medina! I just want to taste it for a moment, (what … Continue reading poetry// distance(d)
poetry// origin stories
Before everything else, I am water. (I think) The Thames was nice and so was the Schuylkill, The Potomac too, I think. I remember the Nile. The Great Lakes. The Chesapeake Bay Like when my uncle joined our field trip and sat in a boat full of small Muslim children and they had never been … Continue reading poetry// origin stories
prose// sleep songs and other things
Time has stretched over the frame of my story like the skin of a large animal, a cloak, a worn in quilt. Somethings are not granted that kind of elasticity: food, sleep, the brief transition from summer to winter where it is cool and light and the air smells like it rained but it didn’t. … Continue reading prose// sleep songs and other things
prose// things i have learned to write and never say
I remember London. I think I was the first student in a long time to go to London and not go to Paris. Sometimes I wish I had gone to the Mona Lisa. See if she looked anything like me. Namesakes are funny. People tell me, oh, I know a Mona, or oh my wife’s … Continue reading prose// things i have learned to write and never say
Daughter of Diaspora 