My stomach aches
When I think of all those babies,
Ribs pressed out against dry skin,
Shrunken brains and swollen stomachs
Straining to escape a poverty
That makes minimum wage
Look like a fortune.
$7.25 an hour, when millions live on
Less than $7 a week,
Pennies that are left warming in parking lots,
Buying another day of life for gaping mouths.
Children are supposed to run, jump  
Play, laugh, learn,
Yet thousands sit blank-eyed
Staring at a future painted in
War-torn red, lonely navy,
And consuming, starving, empty black
Not having enough energy to
Lift thin, pale lips into a weak smile,
Let alone traipse miles of dusty sorrow to school each day.
My soul aches for tears shed in
Dark, hungry nights
Prayers uttered wordlessly
Into the crescent moon
As razor thin as their arms.

They say that we're oppressed
Suffocating behind veils
And wear un-attractive bin bags
Shapeless and nameless

They say we're not allowed to be educated
And assume we can't speak English
That we're slaves to men
And we should forsake the medieval religion

The medieval religion that gave me life
And stopped female child infanticide
The one that treats me equal with no false illusions

The one that says that I should be respected as a person not a body
The one that first gave me rights
To vote and own property

The religion that commands me to seek knowledge and educate
To travel for this duties sake
And allows me to keep my name

Islam says that I should be covered
Like all things rare and special
Pearls and diamonds
You wouldn't flash your jewels for the taking

Nuns are admired for their devotion
And respected for their piety
Also clinging on to their modesty
Our models are Maryam or Mary

Not a cent that I earn has to be spent on anyone but myself
And the best of men in Allah's eyes
Is one who treats me the best

In the moments of your first breath your name is burned into the skin
It's up to you to live that life and make it fit
I have grown out of my name, out of my home
A giant trying to room with the little old lady that lived in a shoe
Sometimes I'm held hostage by my roots that reach up and fasten their tendrils around my oaf limbs
Tugging too hard makes the earth turn into scarves that wrap around my colored hair
A queer islamic girl is weird and rare.
I don't believe that a god would condemn us to be such a walking oxymoron
But sometimes when I read the Koran and agree
Trace a few familiar names with my finger
What used to be me can't truly be

A small and gratuitous thank you
to every single one of you
who read my absent minded emotions
that I plaster among the fields of great poetry.
A gracious acknowledgement
to the best friends
who listen to me say the same things
over and over
about the same boy
and his beautiful hands
and his leaving for Germany.  
A sincere recognition to the new friends
who tolerate my abnormality
and hang with me through the spontaneity
of midnight conversations through
binary code of chat functions.
A sincerest gratitude
to the mother who carried me through
the hard winter
when anxiety made me heavy
with the weight of my worries.
Who now shares happy afternoons
garden beds
and chai tea on the front porch.
To everyone in my life
who witnessed my darkest hours
and sunniest peaks.
To every single person who has trekked the terrain
of my unpredictable personality
and sarcastic biting words
my cruelty and arrogance
my sleep deprived, half assed attitude
my unpredictable pickiness
and my constantly changing tastes.
You have seen me at my worst
and stayed strong by my side
so now I am proud to share with you my best.
To everyone who helps me get through the day
Thank you.

I was born into a
Hall of wooden pews and
Sundays full of crinkling satin bows,
Confronted by a stern-faced woman with iron grey curls
Tighter than her heart.
I remember very little of those
Sunday rooms, mazes of correct answers and long half-hours
I was raised through new pews,
Carpeted halls and
Long hours with brown haired ladies
A book 1200 pages thick of
Tradition and my mother's folded hands as I peek
From under my bowed head,
Earning sharp reprimands from white  robed men.

I saw them,
Of course,
Walking in Dearborn, Detroit, Ann Arbor, far away lands of unrest, but
They weren't in little, white, homogenous Chelsea, Michigan,
Of course,
Not them.
Yet I marveled at soft amber skin
And deep chocolate eyes full of
More galaxies than I ever knew existed,
Split solar systems of hushed mosques and mosaics that I was never
Allowed to see.

But I loved it.

My room became a tiny haven,
My dusty mirror showing a soft headscarf wrapped carefully,
Gently,
Over flyaway frizz,
Green cotton matching hazel eyes.
I knew not the complexities,
So I faked them,
Simply kneeling because I could not
Remember all the beautiful
Dances of prostration to praise another name of God.
Foreign syllables try to roll from my strangely
English tongue; I never realized how
Odd and stiff my born language is,
Too full of contradictions and
Double entendres, strict lines of black and white
Inky blood spilled on snowy sheets of paper,
Ancient characters telling me how to live my life.
As far as I'm concerned,
Allah (swt) and God are just two names
For the same deity,
And I simply preferred
Fajr
Dhuhr
'Asr
Maghrib
'Isha
Over the Lord's Prayer and
Hail Mary.
My rosary beads were quiet patches of rakaahs
Though I could not pronounce any of the words.

I kept secrets too heavy to lift into the
Dark recesses of my mental hiding-holes
Instead dwelling in discrepancies and dealing in bargains.
Half of me fit perfectly to each,
A blasphemous picture of the ****** Mary
Transposed to the cover of a Qur'an
I had never opened, like the
Guilt-edged pages of Bibles growing weary
Under my desk.
Two irreconcilable pieces of religion,
Broken images of stained glass crowns
That can't be formed into the intricate patterns of an
"Exotic" heart.
So for today I pack away my rakaahs and prostrations in a wooden box,
And take up my cross again.
Someday, though,
My heart will chase itself through the five pillars,
And I will shake out the green cotton,
Wrapping it carefully over a flyaway soul.

O, Traveller
They were glorious
Our boys in gray
Tho the blue carry this day
We shan't forget
No, never.

O, Traveller
Did you see them march
To beating drum
To smoke and fire
Our boys in gray
We shan't forget
No, never.

O, Traveller
This rain and mud
Virginia awaits in sorrow
The day is gray
For our boys
We shan't forget
No, never.

r ~ 5/26/14

Hey God, scoot over a bit. I'm feeling kinda tired. Would you fluff that cloud for me?  Ah, thanks dude, much better. My head's been feeling heavy. The closer I get to the end of the road, well...makes me wonder why bother with the rest of the show. The endings are all the same.

To be honest, it hasn't been quite all it was hyped.  We start running low on that joy thing and all of a sudden it just seems so ...pointless.  I find myself wondering if my dog is going to outlive me. ****'s that about?  I've had a dozen or so dogs and this is the first I've ever worried about whether one would be sad if I checked out tomorrow. Another sad lonely old dog ain't going to be the end if the world.

Even poetry's not doing much for me. Face it, mine's fallen flat, and with the exception of a handful of golden pens on HP, it's kind of gone to hell. Oh, I don't blame eliot. That's what happens when us old ***** play around with technology that the youngins know more about. Algorithm doesn't know **** about poetry, and all I know about hash is how to smoke it. Think I'll just stay up here and rest a spell. This fluffy cloud is feeling mighty fine.

r ~ 5/23/14