fruition
i
on the day you left
I suckled strawberry seeds
between my teeth
saplings germinate on my tongue
I swallow
and taste you
with each harvest
that comes to pass
ii.
TSA don’t bother me none
this time around
I hobble down
the disassembly line
ignoring the pat downs
that throw off hard fought equilibrium
the cold linoleum floor
sending ice all the way up
to the base of my spine
I field ignorant questions
about whether my cane
is a weapon of mass destruction
and do my locs
contain concealed explosives
iii.
four days
after my arrival
I find you in the kitchen
I don’t wait for wine
before kissing
the back of your neck
I’ve counted time
in post cards with foreign stamps
and seeds sent from faraway places
waiting for this moment to come
I long to revisit your body
the way I do in my dreams
where I subsist on strawberries
and the nourishment of your beauty
iv.
the last night of my visit
our legs lay intertwined
like roots beneath
the blanket of our earth
you ask to remain my quiet place
pleading with promises
of solitude and rest
I mourn each word
falling from my lips
that tells you
I have to go back
cause too many folx
depend on me to
stomp
shout
and act
the fuck up
repentance
i fasted for thirty days
forsaking food, flesh, drink
prayed from dawn
till sun
left its widow’s peaks
i bathed in the tears
of mothers who birthed more
than they ever anticipated
and yet
i still couldn’t get the smell of you
out of my skin
from the last time
you exhaled between my legs
and they tell me
I forsake God for you
wild woman, reckless woman
tarnished by the mark
of a disbelieving tongue
I am beyond salvation
my mother recites
janazah[1] in absentia
fearing hellfire herself
it’s difficult to disown a child
for their transgressions
when they refuse to disappear
on the last day
raised on a rock
perched in prayer
I charge myself
by the light
of waning gibbon’s smile
reciting until my voice is horse
and tongue is numb
bismillah
in the name of
everything you are to me
bismillah
in the name of
everything I’ve
gained and lost
at once
bismillah
in the name of
everything unspoken
and yet still known
the name and the named
I burn your name in effigy
written 77 times
on shards of paper
hands cracked and broken by blood
I lose count of how many times
your name is misspelled
or words are slurred
as tear drops fill altar bowls
the memory of you
spurns my best attempts at forgetting
refusing to be burnished from my skin
phantom hand prints
as embedded as stretch marks
as the blood and bone
that make us possible
I am haunted by you
even in moments
where I remain convinced
I have nothing left
to give to ghosts
and they tell me
I forsake God for you
wild woman, reckless woman
sullied beyond repair
I wash myself in ashes
smoke finds the corner
in the qibla’s shadow
where sacred regularly meets profane
I kneel
and await redemption
[1] Muslim funeral prayer
[zaynab shahar is a queer black sufi Muslim. Born and raised in Evanston, IL she’s currently based in Chicago, IL. She graduated from Hampshire College with a B.A in Jewish Studies and Creative Writing and received her M.A from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS). zaynab currently divides her time between pursuing a doctorate in Religion at CTS and organizing for queer/faith projects such as Third Coast Queer Muslims and Masjid al-Rabia.]