Lyricizes

For all your talk of

strength and person,

You know that you would

unbuckle at your knees,

fall heart-first out of your mouth,

at just the thought of him no more.

We must let go of our heroes.
Not tie them to our sides
and hope they will bouy us to tomorrow.
We must breathe on our own.
Carry it forward.
Accept the living as legacy.

The way in which my genes are writ,
has wired me with my mother’s wit,
and tears that run just below my skin,
a surface scratch and I’m bawling sin.

When will it be

that a generation

has its baksheesh

not as some grudging gineh

tossed into a palm

but as a sweet freedom

dripping off of kunafa.

A huriya lingering and sticky,

smothering old bitterness,

of bread queues,

and wanting,

and wanting,

and needing,

and needing.

Bukra Insha-Allah.

No.

His Will is Today.



—

hura – Free

baksheesh – gift/ euphemism for a tip

gineh – the Egyptian Pound

kunafa – a type of sweet

huriya – Freedom

Bukra Insha-Allah – Tomorrow, God Willing.

For the most part,
children are
adult-improvers.

How is it that
a light in my heart
becomes
a stone in your hand?

That a tongue in your mouth
is a butchering spear,
when the remembrance of Him
should make us all whole instead?