#breakingthefastblog

[breakingthefastblog]

A poem by Hannah Ali

Smile they said grin let your white teeth shine forget about the shattering sounds it makes as it hides the tongue of pain seal it so tight that your painful narratives never leave your mouth but shatter on your lips leaving it chapped When you write, write happy when you talk, talk fantasy when you talk muslims, use the word perfection when you say religion, never mention struggle when you talk faith, always have it “I am done” I am sick and tired of speech that never tasted the pain of my vowels telling me that faith always feels in prayer because my faith is different 

On Monday I have it and on Tuesday, I find myself standing reciting vowels my heart don’t move to covered with emptiness aching of pain using an Azan that was used to tell me I wasn’t muslim enough to talk to a God, who understands that even though my body couldn’t feel it was still coated with faith and it still produced the unbroken sentences of a Muslim I am exhausted of spending hours reminiscing my childhood only to be presented with the recalling of sleepless nights filled with tears running down my face escaping from thoughts of death filled with vowels that narrated my sinful body was going to burn in hell and even when my childhood brain tried to change it to happy talk it couldn’t because I was only taught angry God and never the God filled with love the one that gifted me shadows as company when I felt isolated from this world the one that opened my eyes to stranger’s smile when i was done holding on I am angry of Muslim woman asking me to write happy poems about being a Muslim woman because me being a Black Muslim woman is far from happy It is filled with the using of the Prophet to silence my voice with hushed lullabies it contains synonyms of using of the sunnah to shove my vagina to the back always catering to the erection dysfunction of testes while never speaking out on the lack of orgasmic happiness It is the using of the hijab to shame the Bosoms that chose to blossom to dissociating with hips that lived life to make the very being of womanhood a sin I am done being told to shine teeth that shiver to my narratives of pain of the using of shahada to make drums that preached my self-love is a sin of the misusing of Surahs to tell me who I wanted to be is un-Islamic of the changing of hadiths to tell me to respect elders that left marks of power on skin too naive to protest to the using of culture to force a undefined Jilbab that didn’t complement the marks of pain I am done being told that I am sinning that I am not Muslim enough by souls who never heard the rhythms of my talks with God who never felt the way my vocals dance when I tell Allah my pain.

[breakingthefastblog]

Decolonizing Canada Day while reclaiming grief and histories of resistance

Today is heavy. I am left to deconstruct pounds of my identity. Memories come in the form of joy, sorry, and grief. Butler noted that the self is never autonomous, and that it is part of our being to be connected with others. Thus, when we lose someone, our process of grief is complex, in that the destination is unknown.

  This day, 6 years ago part of me got buried as Allah took my dad back. I am still in the process of grief.

  It is beautifully complicated because July 1st also involves joy of my Somali ancestors moving forward by fighting for their independence against the white colonizers. Therefore, my grief process includes recalling the Somali in my dad: his intellect, his boldness and his education. Thus, my grief includes a scent of pride. As I recall how culturally prideful my dad was. Even though Whiteness attempted to strip him from his doctoral degree and borders undertook the process of cleansing him of his identity, he remained proudly Somali.

 However, my grief doesn’t end there. July 1st is also the day colonizers celebrate Canada Day, without acknowledging the stolen land they continue to reside on. For this reason, my grieving process also includes acknowledging my privilege. That I was born on unceded colonized territory because First Nations, Aboriginal, and Indigenous bodies continue to undergo linguistic, cultural, and physical genocide. My grief includes recalling the importance of nature in Indigenous cultures and combining it with Islamic teachings as I watched, 6 years ago, my dad’s Somali merge with land that continues to be occupied.

  6 years and I am still in my process of grief. One that is so far complex, beautiful, and intellectually stimulating. I am still learning to be boldly Somali, whilst simultaneously understanding and fully acknowledging that I am on unceded colonized territory.

The author is a Somali woman who wishes to remain anonymous.

[breakingthefastblog]

Running Orders

They call us now. Before they drop the bombs. The phone rings and someone who knows my first name calls and says in perfect Arabic “This is David.” And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies still smashing around in my head I think “Do I know any Davids in Gaza?” They call us now to say Run. You have 58 seconds from the end of this message. Your house is next. They think of it as some kind of war time courtesy. It doesn’t matter that there is nowhere to run to. It means nothing that the borders are closed and your papers are worthless and mark you only for a life sentence in this prison by the sea and the alleyways are narrow and there are more human lives packed one against the other more than any other place on earth Just run. We aren’t trying to kill you. It doesn’t matter that you can’t call us back to tell us the people we claim to want aren’t in your house that there’s no one here except you and your children who were cheering for Argentina sharing the last loaf of bread for this week counting candles left in case the power goes out. It doesn’t matter that you have children. You live in the wrong place and now is your chance to run to nowhere. It doesn’t matter that 58 seconds isn’t long enough to find your wedding album or your son’s favorite blanket or your daughter’s almost completed college application or your shoes or to gather everyone in the house. It doesn’t matter what you had planned. It doesn’t matter who you are Prove you’re human. Prove you stand on two legs. Run. - Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is an Arab American poet of Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian heritage. She spent childhood summers savoring poems and fresh-picked pistachios  in her grandparents’ garden in Amman. She writes poetry as well as essays and literary translations. Her writing has been published in journals in the UK, Turkey, Egypt, Mexico, and the United States, including the Kenyon Review online, the Lake for Poetry, the Monarch Review, and Sukoon. Her poem “Immigrant” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014. Her first collection of poems, Water & Salt, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Find her at www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com.

[breakingthefastblog]

A Poem for Black Lives Matter

Hearts spending hours raging closets finding perfect coloured dresses and  edged ties to match  feelings of  everyday funeral blues

featuring bloodlines we never met but names that effortlessly roll of tongues in  resistance with dirt that refuses to cover bodies whose time wasn’t supposed to end

on Monday our hearts wear  blood lipsticks and floral dresses of hope as it sits in empty libraries finding synonyms of pain for skeleton’s broken vowels and midway cut sentences

And from Tuesday to Sunday we  cover our bruised bodies with Black lives matter posters as we join with the dirt’s resistance against the seasons of forgetting

- Hannah Ali