hanai

my grandmother's name was muna

they called her mna,

she had eyes greener 

than the mint she pressed

into her husbands tea,

hands small as a child's,

stronger than a soldier's

five foot, maybe

if she stretched

she was

a woman

married a boy she knew her entire life,

a pilot's wife, ear constantly tuned towards the radio

for signs of accidents in the sky

slept with her head on his shoulder every night

she was

a wife

life spent in a constant cycle of

kneading, nourishing, and loving

birthed nine children,

two who's faces the next moon

never saw,

countless others

lost in utero,

she loved them all,

painfully

she was a mother

never learned to read,

but taught her daughters

a woman must learn to do everything

told time by the way the light

hit the wall

worked with her elbows, knees,

and neck

broke her back

to erect the spine

of a home

she never slept in

taught her daughters

to love with their entire body

but her sons

she loved from a place

low in her stomach,

that roared up and welled over,

that stretched across oceans,

riding on tides

hard and deep,

some nights they still say her name

in their sleep

she was amazing

i never knew her

i only have the stories

about her eyes,

how they were 

green

greener than the na'anah

she put in her tea,

greener than the sea 

in winter

greener than the grass

in the month before summer,

when the sun comes to make everything dry

i only have the stories

about how her hair 

was two black braids that hung to her waist,

and the way she sat when she ate.

i never knew her

so i wrote a poem

so i could feel 

like i know her

my grandmother's name was muna

and they called her mna

i wish i knew you

before everyone else thought you were beautiful.

marley.

note: despite what it seems, this is a poem about the boy, not the musician. be who you are, loves. don't throw your life away trying to be something else.

-

nights spent in a smoky room,

blunt in hand, 

surrounded by ugly people

you think it will make you like him,

like the drugs will channel through you

and possess you with talent, raw, 

like the chemicals will filter into your system,

illuminating like morning light through a stained glass window 

and teach your fingers how to play,

your voice how to sing,

like your brain will rework itself 

into something better than it is

you are not bob marley

you are just a boy 

who smokes too much.

and marley was just a man

who wrote music 

and made mistakes

and smoked too much

he was not god

it is dangerous

to imitate an artist,

they are the most unreliable 

kind of beautiful

artists crack themselves open

to see what pours out,

examine ribs for lost messages

carved by swallowed demons,

trapped, and open veins 

to see what their pulse looks like

like most poets, he never learned 

to love right

made music

that he loved like a woman,

too hard 

to be healthy

you are a boy

in a room

with a joint.

you

know

nothing. 

marley turned his soul inside out

trying to find a way back to trenchtown

he was a poet.

he was a musician.

he was an artist.

he was beautiful.

and you are just stupid enough

to think it was worth it. 

cobra

you were my intoxicating malady, 

an exotic allurement, 

captivating me,

from conception to completion,

a dangerous intimacy.

you were the pied piper,

and your flute played my

siren song

resting obediently in your basket,

i swayed to your hiss

like a dancer,

using dimmed lights

to hide her face

naive enough to look past your fangs,

until they pierced me,

your guile around me like a vice,

constricting conscious

more than consciousness

you are reptilian. 

the music stopped,

and you swallowed me whole.

when they're with you, they're with you.

but they won't be with you for long.

RIP my Prince. My sweet, sweet boy.

I will choose to remember you like this. And I wish I could write something more eloquent, something more deserving to celebrate your life that you would have so easily given for me, to describe how innocently you loved without asking for anything back, but right now, I can't.

Right now I will work on remembering you like this. With your head out the window. Or in my lap.

Rest now, my boy, in peace.

horcruxes or hallows?

beautiful and dark. raw and whimsical. left me aching.

boy in the cupboard under the stairs no more, but a man with five o'clock shadow and the dull ache of loss, with hands that have felt a body seep life and eyes that have seen too much.

so young, to be fighting so many.

i watched until my eyes hurt.

RIP Dobby.

"Parents," said Harry,

"shouldn't leave their kids unless - unless they've got to."

.

"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

-

i literally shivered to the tips of my toes the first time i read this.

Kingsley was striding

backward and forward, glancing up at the sky every time he turned. Harry was reminded of Uncle Vernon pacing the living room a million years ago.

-

it really does feel like a million years ago.

"Our best chance is to use decoys.

Even You-Know-Who can't split himself into seven."

There was a brief silence

in which the distant echo of Hagrid smashing down a wooden front door seemed to reverberate through the intervening years.

-

who else remembers it?

peeling pomegranates

it was like giving birth,

in that cramped apartment,

fingers sifting through soft

flesh for ripened seeds

it was like committing murder

on that scratched wooden floor,

in your underwear,

ruby juice like blood, spattered

against lower stomach,

right above where your womb 

would be

would be.

it was like leeching life, 

to lick it from your fingers,

it was like the most lonesome

kind of death, to fall asleep,

curled into yourself on that floor,

room, heart and abdomen empty,

thighs, teeth, and hands

stained red. 

the almost girls. (extended)

we are the almost girls

the not quite girls

the nearly, nearly

just right girls

the all but girls,

the close to girls,

the somewhere in the ball park girls,

the just about girls,

the not quite

without a doubt girls,

the mostly, on the verge of, 

not far from girls

the somehow, somehow

never just right girls. 

almost girls

we are the almost girls
the not quite girls
the nearly, nearly
just right girls

i should thank you

for disillusioning me, but right now it only makes me sad.

your mother's tragedies.

dried up lakes remind her of her mother

and she doesn't want to be the girl

who wrote a thousand poems

for a boy she never met

eating grapefruit

makes her think of her mother's mouth,

of lipstick left in the tube too long, 

and she doesn't want to spend her life

missing a face she's never seen

her mothers hands smell like bleach,

nails chipped, 

and she doesn't want to wake up one morning,

with her mother's tired face

and yellow eyes,

still in love with ghosts of men

from her mother's past. 

the grey box.

she always loved his hands,
warm and strong and sure.

she flung herself
from the peak of
the highest roof in town
the morning after
that was all they could
send back to her.

trinket stories.

she knew she would love him
for the rest of her life
when he tipped her wire basket
onto the floor, rings, bracelets,
spilling across the carpet in
flashes of green stones and
purple plastic, red metal
rusting brown, and said,
"tell me the stories."

.

and for a time,

it was good.

so good.

      for a time.

sweet summer skin.

i think of you when pineapple turns my mouth sore,
the corners of my lips raw, i think of how
you would press your fingers into them,
they would taste like summer,
skin turned sweet.

layla wa majnun.

you called me your layla,

the famous love from days 

of old, your layla

and now, i spend each night

in a boundless, delicious

frightful state, terrified

that you will be my majnun. 

i pass by these walls,

the walls of layla.

expiration date: sooner than you think

sometimes, i open the fridge

and stare at its contents,

the milk two days too old,

the pumpkin i've been meaning

to make something with.

sometimes, i stand at the window

and stare at the light turning yellow,

and then pink, and then blue

sometimes, i look at someone

and my eyes stay there,

their face pulling like a magnet

sometimes i hear a word,

or a phrase,

or a part of a sentence,

and i feel like i'm on 

the precipice of something,

wildly, hugely, completely important.

then it passes.

i close the fridge. 

i have bruises on my body

left by ghosts,
and blood under
my nails
that is not mine.

whispers in my
ear, from
voices
i've never
heard

and a taste
in my mouth
that feels
like smoke.

i like things

to be a little bit ugly sometimes.

the day sorrow came.

It was nearly fall the afternoon Sorrow came to stay. Not to visit, but to stay. She didn't come unprepared, on the fly, with dusty hair and travel-worn shoes. She came for good, with bags in each hand packed to brim, ready for any occasion. 

Trousers and blouses and house clothes. Sequined dancing dresses and skimpy underthings, exercise shoes and shiny stilettos. A bag of its own just for bracelets and bangles, pendants and rings. Pretty things to dangle from the lobes of her ears and rest against the slope of her chest. 

Black. All of it in black. Black, black, black.

The pencil she lined her eyes with and the powder she brushed over her lids. The bottles, slender and graceful that held her perfume, the heaviness of each scent betraying its delicate bottle. Every item of her clothes and every piece of her jewelry. Every shoe in her trunk. Black.

She came at the time of year when the wind was still undecided whether to blow warm or cool. She came at the time of day that the sky was just splitting open, into reds and oranges, like a peach, bitten into after one day too long on the counter. She came at the hour when the whole farm, for miles either way, smelled faintly of old peaches. She came that year when your sister's cheeks reminded you of peaches, round and blushing bright. 

She came that time of year before the fall, when the air smelled like peaches and the sky looked like peaches, right after the last drop of sticky peach juice dripped from your sister's face to her hands to her feet. 

She came without invitation or welcome, with her black bags and black clothes and nothing was ever the same. None of you were ever the same. Right as the last drop of juice hit the dust, she came strolling into the yard. Her heavy perfume drowned out the smell of peaches, and it never came back. The sky always seemed to go from blue to black. 

honeysuckles.

She said she smelled honeysuckles. 

"There are no honeysuckles." 

"I smell them."

"Well, there aren't any." He followed her through the winding bushes anyway. "It's way too cold. It's not time for honeysuckles - you're out of your - "

He stopped as she turned around to face him, pale blossom in hand. He watched her pull the thin stem easily from the flower, and held it up to his lips. 

He felt confused, like a teacher had marked him wrong on a test, when his answer was right.

"It's - they can't be growing now - it's almost December - "

When she saw he wasn't going to take the stem, she brought it to her own mouth and sipped the syrup easily off. 

She let it drop to the ground and reached for another, shrugging as it if was simple, when it wasn't. 

"They're confused too."

"don't get taken."

best advice i've ever received.

10. 10. 10.

like a heartbeat.

"I am not worried, Harry,"

   said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you."

"It's . . . it's magic, what I can do?"

"What is it that you can do?"

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

-

Chill bumps raise like braille on my arms every time I read this.

"Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man!

This pain is part of being human - "

"THEN - I - DON'T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN!"

Already finished with the book, but I neglected to post this bit as I was reading through it. It had me in furious tears the first time I read it.

"Remember Cedric.

Remember, if the time should come when you have to make the choice between what is right and what is easy. Remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

"I'm fine," said Harry,

wondering why he kept telling people this, and wondering whether he had ever been less fine.

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" roared Black.

"DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!"

I'm beginning Goblet of Fire now, but that was sticking with me. Felt like it needed sharing.

hello, all. :)

i'm currently reacquainting myself with the boy in the cupboard under the stairs. it's been a lovely few days.

when i was eleven and in the cupboard under the stairs, he made the dark seem a little less scary. but i guess some books are like that.

join me?

she was my baby.

and i would give you to have her back.

jumbalaya dreamin'.

i closed my eyes and

pretended that I

was in louisiana,

closed my eyes and

breathed in sticky air

humid and hot

weighty with hope, and

thought of new orleans,

turn of the century

closed my eyes, and

listened to that hum,

pretended that creole boy

was singing just for me. 

eighteen

looks just like this.

he told her

that a mother will give up on her daughter, but not her son.

this land.

this is my land.

i have no deeds, no certificates

no men in dark suits witnessed me 

sign my name to stiff sheets of paper,

weighed down with life's work.

but this is my land.

and i claim it.

i was not forced, beaten, chained

traded, enslaved, betrayed

pushed out and pulled at

until cheeks caved 

inward on themselves, until wills did,

giving up and turning grey.

but this is my land

and i claim it. 

this is not the land where my

father's fathers laid first foot

and my mother's sweat was spilled,

where my ancestors afterbirth was dropped

into soil,

but this is my land. 

and i claim it. 

because here, my head was raised

these stars, my eyes have gazed

as hey turned and changed

from infants baby blue to toddler's hazy grey,

to young woman's soft brown

i know these stars

i know this moon

i know this grass

i know these trees

and this is my land. 

i hate when you make me lose faith in people.

but then somebody always gives it back.

i am not my hair.

i am not this skin.  i am not your expectations.

horsemen.

wrote this almost five years ago. found it and smiled, even though it's not that happy. enjoy. :)
-

i will follow where you go
life, death, or limbo
come hell or high water,
the horsemen of death

look fear in the eye,
and smile.

"you cannot conquer a mountain,"
she told me one day,
"but you can conquer yourself."

so i will follow where you go
life, death, or limbo.

this is not your star spangled banner.

i'm not  here to play with you,

i'm just trying to relay to you 

the reality 

of what it is that we go through

and i shouldn't say we, but i do 

because thankfully, 

i'm still relatively free

to go and say and do like i please

the worse it ever comes to

is looks and comments on the streets

and random selections at airport security

and you won't see it on tv,

but there are places where children 

once ran in the streets

and i say ran, because now

instead of bare feet

bombs rain down like 

stars over the sea

women wail over 

those same children's feet,

now not connected to anything

so while they may look like me,

same bridge of nose, same 

color of teeth,

while they might talk like me

and pray like me, 

and come from me,

they are not like me

and i shouldn't say we.

because at least i know 

what it's like

to be a little bit free. 

my wishing stone

i will not call you my rose

in such an overdone tone, 

i will not compare your eyes

to the sun

i will not equate your hair 

to waves of silk, your hands

to satin

your voice to honey

your voice has always been slightly hoarse,

anyway, your hands worker's rough,

your eyes favor coal more than diamonds,

and your hair splits in places, to grey

you are not a hero of old

and you never know 

what things to say

i always have to call twice

before you answer the phone

it's never in your pocket

but warm wind comes in with you

every night, and your neck 

smells like happy memories 

you check the oil twice a month

and you always call back,

even if i left a message,

just in case.

you are not a gleaming jewel,

nor even a diamond in the rough

you are a smoothed and worn stone

deep in my pocket, that warms

more than it weighs down

and for that reason, it stays. 

i love you

and you don't have to say it back.

rahma.

in arabic,

the word for womb means mercy.

swollen hearts.

the river was swollen like a 

woman's body, pregnant

for one week too long, like her

feet would swell under the weight

of a second life, like her belly would

swell as her child turned over in womb.

swollen woman gave birth

at the swollen river,

thighs stretched apart, 

tree roots taking place of 

companion's warm fingers,

lapping water

becoming a medicine woman's 

sure hands.

and the tide took place

of undertaker,

sweeping away 

blood, and with it,

all life. 

you and them.

you type like them
and talk like them
and act like them
and walk like them
and wear your sunglasses just like them,
until i can't tell the difference anymore.

jidi.

my grandfather ran away to fight a war when he was fourteen years old. he came home and married a girl with small hands and green eyes. she slept with her head on his shoulder every night, and this is what we remember.  

viva argentina. ♥.

sizzling sunsets

We used to sit and listen to the sunset together, and you would tell me things. Now let me tell you something: you have never been more beautiful than when you weren't trying. 

The sunset changed the way your face looked, from light to fading to dark, and the differences only made you more beautiful. It didn't have anything to do with anything else - just that we were there, and we were together, and you were one beautiful thing of a myriad of beautiful things under my eyes.

Back when my eyes saw everything as beautiful. 

So I know things are different now, for me more than you - or maybe for you more than me, it's really hard to judge. But I wanted to let you know that. That you're kind of trying too hard, and that's not what makes you beautiful. 

:)

it's been too long, loves. :) how's the sun?

she was five feet.

of concrete.

maps, wait.

they don't love you like i love you.

jay birds sing

and the passing of things.

day nine.

wednesday. may 19, 2010.

-

you are greedy

in the most internal

kind of way, grabbing up 

every snatch of memory,

every bit of joy your 

fingers can grasp.

holding it tight,

building it up 

inside your chest,

keeping it all

for yourself.

you do not want
to share this place.

day eight.

tuesday. may 18, 2010. 

-

there is nothing

like being remembered,

like knowing that somewhere,

sometime, somehow

you left an impression

on someone.

even the round man 

who runs the corner shop,

and never takes your money. 

day seven.

monday. may 17, 2010. 

-

she came and sat,

filled the room with her voice,

filled the yard with her laughter.

her embraces stealing your breath,

her presence spilled out over 

the courtyard walls.

and her sorrow,

her sorrow seeped

all the way 

to the very borders

of tripoli. 

day six.

sunday. may 16, 2010. 

-

she thinks maybe

this is the summer

she'll come into her gift.

if not, she can always

sit on open verandas

and drink tea over

libyan sunsets and

cuts glances from

the corners of her eyes. 

day five.

saturday. may 15, 2010.

-

i wonder 

if he misses his aunts cooking,

or the way his sister slept, one arm

thrown over his back.

or the way his father touched their heads

one after another 

before he left in the morning. 

i wonder if he misses

the way the sun sizzled

before it sunk, blazing,

a nigerian sunset. 

i wonder 

when he calls my aunt mama,

if he curls up at night,

young, so young,

and wishes for home

like an ache. 

day four.

friday. may 14, 2010.

-

the sky was grey today.

and close,

close enough to touch

if only my fingers

stretched that far. 

day three.

thursday. may 13, 2009.

-

jet-lag,

worn-out clothes, 

cross-airport races

and suitcase handle blisters

aside, 

it's so, so good

just to be here. 

day two.

wednesday. may 12, 2010.

-

citizen m hotel

reminds me

of a dream

i had once.

life operated

by remote.

i spent the entire night

making the lights

flash from blue to green. 

reality - checking out, 

please. 

libya in lowercase - volume two, day one

tuesday. may 11, 2010.


-

there is nothing

more confusing 

or frustrating 

or mind-spinning

than saying goodbye,

except saying goodbye

in the middle 

of hartsfield airport's

security check. 

currently: amsterdam

i am safe.

alhamdulillah, alhamdullah.

gratitude for every prayer. much love.

where we were.

and when they entered,

they saw the message

on the walls

"we were here,

and now we're gone

now you are here

and we're alone

just know that we 

waited for you 

while we could,

when we were here. "

she grew up good, she grew up slow.♥.

((couldn't wait to get going, but wasn't quite ready to leave. ))

just something beautiful for you, to pass the time.

much love, much love.

space-holder

they told her to remember that there was more to her than him.

but the thing was, there wasn't.

love feels like

it's like

tripping,

falling,

slipping,

sliding,

wildly,

headfirst,

into you. 

mama say

string along tales of a 

revolution born of 

spit and blood

canada, mama say

one day we go

she told me not to 

leave the house that night

not to leave 

into a darkness

full of screams and 

blackness and 

blood. 

should have listened.

day eighteen.

circa 1800.

-

she was always a woman

born in the wrong time,

a few centuries too late

for her heart to make 

an impact.

she would have liked 

to change something,

to have a permanent place

in an interchangeable world.

day seventeen.

chalk. 
-

he made chalk murals,

his hands always caked

with the ash of his art.

pinks and blues and

greens, sifting together

to form grey coating against

his working palms.

he drew a rising sun,

unfolding from the sidewalk,

to shine on forgotten flower beds.

he snuck into playgrounds

of inner-city schools,

to draw happy pictures,

something beautiful

for children who lived

in a world of locks

to wake up to.

and one night,

he crept into your driveway

and drew a woman with bare shoulders,

her back a graceful arch

her hair, fiery red

whipping around in

imaginary wind.

day sixteen.

missed.

-

her aunt told her that they were the kind of women

that make men fall in love with them

soft

and lovely

and light

she told her that she had it,

that thing that sends men spinning.

said that it was in her blood, her eyes.

she said it wasn't conscious,

wasn't to be abused,

that it was wrong

to try to lure in a man

who had no choice. 

her aunt tells her that one day, she too

will make men kneel at her feet.

it was never something

any of them wanted,

five sisters,

women scorned,

losing in love

with the only men

who ever mattered.

the next day, she kisses her aunt 

and steps outside. looks across the wall 

at the boy with shining eyes and ringing laugh,

and thinks that the gift missed her. 

day fifteen.

skyla. 

-

this is for you

not just for you

but for me too

memories taken down

onto paper,

made alive 

a second time.

summers on 

wrap-around couches

and writing on backs,

t-shirts pulled up

over heads.

feet burnt on asphalt,

and pizza,

and too many kids for one place

but making it work.

a short

yellow jumpsuit 

worn every other day

and chlorine-gobbled

hair.

further back.

homemade play-dough

and cupcakes,

burnt carpet 

and purple hands

on a plate.

old home videos

of easter morning,

shared candy

and snickering

under beds.

long hair

and disney movies

and falling asleep

before new years.

seventeen years.

seventeen memories.

seventeen kisses. 

day fourteen.

love songs.
-

she asked her mother

once

why every song

on the radio

was about love.

her mother told her

it was because love

was the most 

important thing

in the entire world. 

she still thinks

about it,

every time

she twists 

the dial on.