October 2020

I wanted to write about self-care, and how my routine has changed since this pandemic. Yet once again I was dragged back to reality and remembered the university I attend. On October 15th the SABLE Society placed ‘White Supremacists’ and ‘Slave Owner’ stickers on the following signs across campus: Maury Hall, Garrett Hall, Brown College, Madison Hall, Curry School, and Minor Hall. The sticker ‘Eugenicist’ was placed on the Alderman Library sign. The dilemma of being a Black student at UVA is that we have to go through stress, depression, and oppression all at the same time.

I fall in love every day. My boyfriend worries that I’m unfaithful. Little does he know.

The package was heavier than she expected. She ripped the flimsy duct tape from the seams of the box and pulled out what was inside: a book. Paperback, pages tattered, worn from overuse. The corners of her lips mirrored the curled page corners as she started to smile and hugged the book close to her body. It had been a month since she subscribed, but she wasn’t upset by how long it had taken. All that mattered was it was finally here.

It all started with a Snapchat. I usually only Snapchat my cousins, and I have no idea how or when this guy became my friend, but I received a notification from a John**. The photo was of a shirtless boy with squinty eyes and a little smirk that said “wyd.” I showed it to my brother asking who the guy was. My brother said he had played basketball with him in middle school. I responded to the gold-chain-shirtless-boy and asked if he played basketball with my brother (why did I even entertain this? I have no idea, boys never talk to me, and I like to keep it that way).

(I have no idea if the purple flowers I saw were actually heal-alls but I am always itching for good omens) 

I sometimes look out at birds and wish I was them. And mountains

Oh, the mountains, 

Sending tears down their slopes 

            rippling and shaking 

You’re halfway there

The overlook is worth it

Mud-lined and alive 

Breathing

Smooth rock beneath slick shoes, slipping 

Beds of Heal-Alls, purple and singing, lining that 

            path of earth 

Before anyone gets mad, the answer is a resounding NO. You simply cannot; well, at least, not if you care about someone other than yourself (I am looking at white people specifically, yeah, you). You see, the issue with separating morals from politics lies in how privileged you are. The more privileged you are, the more you can separate the two, because the repercussions decrease the higher up the ladder you go.

Picture a family. How many children do you see? How many parents? Mother, father, boy, girl: the nuclear family almost always appears as a two-parent household with (usually) two children.  One child or two, “the family,” according to popular media, has two parents. 

That is not the reality for me; I am a part of a two-person family -- one child, one parent.

Just as an only child behaves differently than a child with siblings, a single-parent household functions differently than a two-parent household.

“Yeah, you would know all about this. I need a lovey, romantic card for somebody,” the large- framed man said in a lowered voice. He glanced around the store from the counter where we stood and squeezed the fingers together near the top of his chest. He made me feel like this was a secret, but he also didn’t know that I was a new employee, so I didn’t know exactly where the cards were unless they were for an anniversary, a brother-birthday, or a bar mitzvah.

I was in my bed, on the phone with him, and after roughly 15 seconds of silence he said to me: “Wanna know what I can’t stop thinking about?” 

And I said,

“Yes,” 

Because I always wanna know what he’s thinking about. 

And he said, 

“That moment at the end of a Zoom call, where everyone’s about to leave and we all wave to each other.” 

Occasionally some people will turn their microphone on and give a little, “Thank you!! Bye!!” That is nice. I am often not that person. 

Do you want to know what’s funny to me? There’s never really a “last” goodbye, is there? Only unsuspecting “when the time is right,” and the old-go-around of “it’s-not-you-it’s-me.” However, my bitterness should not stop others’ outright sunshine beaming from their smiles and being absorbed by eyes that would never leave them stranded at a Dairy Queen on Route 6. How lovely.

I Try Not to Consider the Lilies

I try not to consider the lilies

or think of how they are arrayed

because I know that they are greater

than any earthly king.

Because when I do consider the lilies

I toil and spin in ways I’m not supposed to

Because I can’t want them and

I’m not allowed to have the others

so I burn in the fields as I’m asked

so that I don’t ask any more questions.

And you ask me not to be anxious

The first time I heard the word “diaspora,” it fit perfectly into my mind's holding place for funny words. Diaspora. I would try it on like a cloak-and-veil, whisper it under my breath, and brush it through my dark eyebrows. I’d write it down in cursive; Google it incessantly every time I forgot its perfect definition. The first time I heard the word diaspora I was looking in the mirror.  

Being Arab American means I have a nose that precedes me, and sideburns that adorn my olive-toned face. It means that agarwood (عود) is my olfactory train, and that every event is a wedding.