Bismillah
Start everything with God in mind,
be open about the horrible if existent
nature of your Arabic.
Do not be ashamed of how you carry your religion
its compass, guiding light you follow when you so choose
relinquish the idea of it shinning a single hue
Level your head
try to wear that rolling scab with pride
Remember the times when your hijab
made you feel beautiful but never be afraid to expose your wounds
bear no fear of exposure physical or otherwise
Lose yourself when your write
find a forgetfulness for not being good enough
You are larger than your fears wont let you be
Run away from complacency
even when it looks like God standing still,
Know that God never stands still unless you are running at a divine speed
Check your feet, their harshness, how quickly they are moving
Kick the stagnancy when it comes
Catch up to yourself
Ponder the making of your first love into your last
not for admonishing, just for pondering
On nights when your chest is cold with wondering if you lived too quickly
warm it with the kinetic heat of a clock moving
Time
Feel its abundance, flow in it
there is so much, too much to exist
Forget finite, know it never
Live now
Let yourself wonder why this poem is filled with “Don’ts”
Don’t stop being hard on yourself out of guilt
knead yourself against the scabs on your heart
rub your chest often, especially when your insides hurt
make it prolific
Keep writing poems to your broken body
there are no doctors, no cure that can heal
your inherited illness like these poems
The unveiling of sickled cells
do not make you less strong
Cherish your withering hands for what they are
do not regret how dark your palm
its lines, the depth of the bark, the tell tale rings
Stop trying to hide that you’ve been here before
Kiss boys,…Kiss girls
Kiss first,
and only places screaming of beauty
Look for nothing in return
Be thankful that you will let none of this make you ugly
Forgive yourself for not letting them kiss you
For surrenders reserved for the love you won't let go
Do not let go if you do not want to
Know that its okay if you do decide to
Let yourself build a shrine to your tears
reread the poems he wrote
they are a portal into eternity
Be okay with not wanting to leave it at just that
Reminisce on when you got the wanting washed out of you
how ugly you looked clean
Bask in the residue the stains
the foreshadow in smiling at being called “filthy”
by an Abyssinian son with Seattle tongue
Burn hot inside for him whenever you want to
Fuck outsiders' feelings procreate with patience
Carry the novelty of that love obnoxiously as you want to
other claims will only be as threatening as you allow them to
Listen to those declarations with open ears and a sure heart
Use your heart
as a key
the places you belong will never
accuse you of breaking and entry
If and when you decide to kiss girls
Do not check boxes
But do not not check boxes because you are afraid to
Believe in Hasani
(the hypothetical human being)
love yourself for giving him a name
and appreciate that God gave him a face
Find a way to settle with the idea that he may have many
That “he” may be a “she” or that he
may make his way into your mirror one day
No one is more worthy of your love than you
Make love to your insecurities
be open about the dance you two do
How you are thinking to yourself
you must make this poem pretty,
adequate, less longwinded
Forgetting that you are a stretched breeze
that you encompass everything
Focus, and re-read
every word before these
they prove
Here there is much love
and many vital things to do
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Egbe Omo Yoruba National Conference
Baton Rouge
August 5-8
SHITTIN on deez hoes....
haha.
I'm so excited.
August 5-8
SHITTIN on deez hoes....
haha.
I'm so excited.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The poem that resulted in my drive from Hartford to Hanover last week.
The only emotion easier than anger is sadness, which looks too much like pity to be thrust onto a woman of your strength. For my mother, my fountain of faith, who reminds me to fight for what I believe in the worst way sometimes…by the downpour.
Yet another ride
down a snoring road
crossing New England
In the passengers seat
a bellowing history book of sins
and strict rules bound by strength
is beautiful
It is uncommon for you to be this quiet on a ride
but you still say all that you would want to
the percussion of each breath
a matter of fact sound repeatedly punctuated
by a schizophrenic back and forth paranoid battle,
What is described as “a snorting breath during sleep”
Apparently it is impossible to dream whilst snoring
I imagine, dear mother, that you have long been afraid to
that your nightmares look too much like your memories.
It is still unclear how a woman who has seen so much battle
always manages to come out on top.
Warrior woman you raised an Athena like yourself
and most of the honesty between us
emerges out of feeling combatively corned.
when I feel trapped.
which now is left for days like these
when there is no escaping a battlefield with wheels
and a mother with too many lectures
but not enough good questions.
We have not called the same place home in a year
Our storage is full of burnt out thunderbolts and crushed armor,
our phone conversations the biting taste of iron.
I am told too often about my guard (purity), that my clothes are too tight,
that my shields are not high enough, that I know too many men I trust,
that I don’t know the right time to run away from a fight
We have not learned the same things from war.
Last week you asked me to pray for your friends’ brother
A man in Florida who accidently killed his wife,
in an infidelity fueled rage,
…with a baseball bat.
I can say…like I did last week
that despite all the love in me
I have not learned how to pray for men like that.
Today,
I hear you speaking on the phone
relaying the story
trying to defend a party
Using the phrase:
oloriburiuku obirin
meaning
‘horrible woman’
Forgetting that violence is only ever justified
in the minds of those who commit it.
Forgetting the conversations knives and fists
have had with your throat and body
I wish you did not hold that bat with him today
Umi,
I wish that you would not let the blood and hair
claim your hands and hijab
Somehow you do not see the connection in the faults
of this conversation and the one you have with me
in which you claim that a woman’s body is so holy
men can only read sin into it.
I still do not know how to be trapped into that lack of connections.
I have never felt good hiding behind those cloaks
I will never look good in the lessons learned from your mistakes
In that veiling, and its patriarchal God
He
Who only re-disguises himself
As everyone else’s God
And still finds ways to stand in the mirror cursing
And still trying to catch all my holy with the fire from either side
It should be easier to simply choose one of them
what with my cover too lacking to make me a ‘good Muslim girl’
and juxtaposed modesty too abundant for my sexuality to not be questioned
Choosing would surely be easier than this
But I will not feed from flawed leftovers
Dear mother,
I cannot worship at a temple of backwash
Today
I am stuck in the car with you
All the things that cannot be said over dinner,
or a two day visit
being forced back into my throat by my own hands
I wish I could tell you,
as I have learned,
That the world is not all battles
and how to choose the right ones
That you cannot wear your armor all the time
that even if you end up being partially exposed
you can pray for blooms to sprout from the bruises
and be thankful for your thick skin
I wish
I could tell you about all the handprints
and dented breastplates
How I have found away for them to teach me
Resilience
But today
You are fighting, again,
in a world that you think of
as the highest level of hell,
The world I know
as simply the lowest level of heaven
we have not called the same place home in at least a year
I imagine my words would not translate well as they descend
That they may fall
on deaf ears
and hardened hands
I do in fact know retreat
Taking all of me that is
what the woman you would like to be hopes to be
I will go into hiding (yet again)
The monotonous humming of this road
you will not hear me snoring
Will never know I’ve gone to sleep
Yet another ride
down a snoring road
crossing New England
In the passengers seat
a bellowing history book of sins
and strict rules bound by strength
is beautiful
It is uncommon for you to be this quiet on a ride
but you still say all that you would want to
the percussion of each breath
a matter of fact sound repeatedly punctuated
by a schizophrenic back and forth paranoid battle,
What is described as “a snorting breath during sleep”
Apparently it is impossible to dream whilst snoring
I imagine, dear mother, that you have long been afraid to
that your nightmares look too much like your memories.
It is still unclear how a woman who has seen so much battle
always manages to come out on top.
Warrior woman you raised an Athena like yourself
and most of the honesty between us
emerges out of feeling combatively corned.
when I feel trapped.
which now is left for days like these
when there is no escaping a battlefield with wheels
and a mother with too many lectures
but not enough good questions.
We have not called the same place home in a year
Our storage is full of burnt out thunderbolts and crushed armor,
our phone conversations the biting taste of iron.
I am told too often about my guard (purity), that my clothes are too tight,
that my shields are not high enough, that I know too many men I trust,
that I don’t know the right time to run away from a fight
We have not learned the same things from war.
Last week you asked me to pray for your friends’ brother
A man in Florida who accidently killed his wife,
in an infidelity fueled rage,
…with a baseball bat.
I can say…like I did last week
that despite all the love in me
I have not learned how to pray for men like that.
Today,
I hear you speaking on the phone
relaying the story
trying to defend a party
Using the phrase:
oloriburiuku obirin
meaning
‘horrible woman’
Forgetting that violence is only ever justified
in the minds of those who commit it.
Forgetting the conversations knives and fists
have had with your throat and body
I wish you did not hold that bat with him today
Umi,
I wish that you would not let the blood and hair
claim your hands and hijab
Somehow you do not see the connection in the faults
of this conversation and the one you have with me
in which you claim that a woman’s body is so holy
men can only read sin into it.
I still do not know how to be trapped into that lack of connections.
I have never felt good hiding behind those cloaks
I will never look good in the lessons learned from your mistakes
In that veiling, and its patriarchal God
He
Who only re-disguises himself
As everyone else’s God
And still finds ways to stand in the mirror cursing
And still trying to catch all my holy with the fire from either side
It should be easier to simply choose one of them
what with my cover too lacking to make me a ‘good Muslim girl’
and juxtaposed modesty too abundant for my sexuality to not be questioned
Choosing would surely be easier than this
But I will not feed from flawed leftovers
Dear mother,
I cannot worship at a temple of backwash
Today
I am stuck in the car with you
All the things that cannot be said over dinner,
or a two day visit
being forced back into my throat by my own hands
I wish I could tell you,
as I have learned,
That the world is not all battles
and how to choose the right ones
That you cannot wear your armor all the time
that even if you end up being partially exposed
you can pray for blooms to sprout from the bruises
and be thankful for your thick skin
I wish
I could tell you about all the handprints
and dented breastplates
How I have found away for them to teach me
Resilience
But today
You are fighting, again,
in a world that you think of
as the highest level of hell,
The world I know
as simply the lowest level of heaven
we have not called the same place home in at least a year
I imagine my words would not translate well as they descend
That they may fall
on deaf ears
and hardened hands
I do in fact know retreat
Taking all of me that is
what the woman you would like to be hopes to be
I will go into hiding (yet again)
The monotonous humming of this road
you will not hear me snoring
Will never know I’ve gone to sleep
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard
via (wolffofthesea)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard
via (wolffofthesea)
Monday, June 28, 2010
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