So pretty

How beautiful are flowers 

Pressed between two sheets of glass 

Preserved in eternity in an odourless, 

Colour-draining existence 

Like when she thought she was 

Moving, touching, building

The background music was grandiosely baroque 

And the images she saw were real and vivid,

Years she spent in this ideal, fascinated, saturated

Until one day she tried to move and realised 

She would have to just sit and wait.

Yes, no, yes, there was no mobility here, no 

Fluid, grainy, joint-creaking, none of that 

So she screamed and screamed in a tone 

That had no sound, kicking with phantom limbs 

Until she died, as perfectly still, as the moment of her birth

Skin2Skin

Eve's leaves, Adam's eyes, this is more than squabblings over forbidden fruit

For thirteen years we've touched with my every movement,

So much so, that to seperate would be like to wake up one day

And discover you've lost all visible traces to your parental ethnicity;

Can you imagine the loss, the confusion, the instinct to hide away?

Like any connection, it has its implicit understandings, to uphold this

I need to accept like any ethnic minority, majority, Americanphobiority

How others and Others associate a myriad of identities,

Bigot, frigid, judging, scared, ignorant, conformist, whateverist

That tell me they've found something to latch on, to comfort them

Just like the be-longing we have, my Hijab and I

In my heart

...I imagine you bursting with the love, contentment and Sakeenah of tulips blooming in a Turkish April

One day I cut a piece of time, and hid it in my shoe

Bury the memories carefully,
One day you may need to find them

Barren contentment

The imperfection is what’s most fascinating

The absolute, complete, finity

How one day, we’ll all let go

The world won’t spin

Your heart won’t beat

Heaven being simply an end of neediness

Of wanton wants

Pure white blossoms into whiteness

A non-existent background of invisible blackness

Can you see what I see?