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A,M. Palmer personal essay october 2023

It takes a reminder, a compelling moment, to bring the scope of sorrow and beauty back into focus. As I entered an RV park in Payson, Arizona, a mountain town favored by locals for its mild summer months, I had such an experience.  Often, in the light of something truly magnificent and inspiring, equal measures of sorrow and beauty mingle. We might know it as poignance, wherein joy and sadness combine to become a sweet fermentation of experiences. This is generally reserved for later years of life. And yet, despite its power, this condition often goes unnoticed.  

Upon arriving, I immediately noticed towering cottonwood trees, their leaves gently agitated by the wind. Safely away from the Phoenix sun, I felt a sense of freedom; no scorching heat would triumph against the breeze or bear with us into the evening. With that thought in mind, I felt refreshed. However, as I drove my motorhome over the winding path to my site, I took note of other things, situations contrary to the beauty of trees and sunlight.

Although called a “resort,” the place is really a trailer park in a small town, pleasantly overshadowed by mountains. Those of us with modest means either vacation here or live in “park model” homes year-round. And, with that, a sense of sorrow prevails, despite the sheltering cottonwoods that resist summer heat. I spoke to a few residents who were older and very concerned about skyrocketing rent. In a mobile home park, you must purchase your unit and then continue to lease the land—until you either sell or vacate the structure. For some residents, the latter option might be their only choice. Few people consider this as they enter such communities. Park owners present new units, ready for purchase, and emphasize the conveniences and amenities of the arrangement. Most people forget that the homes are very costly to move, and they devalue quickly. Moreover, the rent will increase annually—without fail, rent control being very much a thing of the past. Even with this in mind, I am still intrigued by the contrasts of the place.  

A tour of the park reveals a large, well-maintained clubhouse, a handful of newer Class-A motorhomes, and the shiny “park models” awaiting their new owners. Also in evidence are dilapidated structures, dreary with the neglect and desperation of older people who simply cannot afford to move. I spoke to one woman who cares for her 96-year-old husband. After he passes, she plans to walk away from their mobile home and live in a renovated van. And there are other stories, as well.

My nearest neighbor to the west had a number of drunken arguments with her son, when he came to visit and brought his little dog. Hailing from Tennessee, the family has been devastated by opioid addiction and the tragic death of a daughter and sister. Across the road and just to the north, a frail woman in her forties smiles in the mornings, attempting to be cordial as she hurries to work. She was ostracized when her pedophile boyfriend arrived to share her trailer. Although it’s nearly July, they keep Christmas lights blinking in the yard, draped around stone cherubs and pots of wilted flowers. With such occurrences, tragedy feels like the prevailing aspect of life here in the “RV resort.”  However, there is still the soft beauty of nature to enjoy, a power that abides throughout the seasons. And the place is not without a bit of charming irony.

As the only African American in the park, I was greeted in an interesting manner by a white neighbor. She said, quite sternly, “It’s a nice place, very quiet. We don’t have any riff-raff here.” Right. I tried not to laugh out loud or take offense at her insinuations. After all, I am not the owner of a park model. As a full-time writer and RV nomad, I am free — merely passing through as a seasonal guest. Although I am relieved to be leaving, I feel a strong sense of sympathy for this environment, this place of contrasting themes.

For the moment, mountains and pine trees prevail, as I regard the poignance before me. The glories of nature and a gentle climate are powerful in their role, softening an atmosphere of desperation with a sense of beauty, albeit temporarily. And this is the way of things in so many small towns. Such places embody poignance, demonstrating the scope of sorrow and beauty. I will be grateful to move on in a couple of weeks, as new horizons await.    


A. M. Palmer is a writer, graphic designer, and retired park ranger with work appearing in Belle Ombre, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Dissident Voice, and other publications. Inroads: An Urban Park Anthology is the author’s first book. Palmer holds a master’s degree in history from the University of San Diego and continues to research art and social history with a variety of upcoming projects. The author is a member of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors.  Read the author’s latest work at A.M. Palmer, Literary Nonfiction.

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joao melo poetry october 2023

                        “We are the eternally forgotten.”

                                                    Mia Couto

dearest ghosts

of ancient slaves

who are long forgotten

by our memory

dear ones

ghosts from the congo

that

three times

saw the horror

with your own eyes

dearest ghosts from biafra

and ethiopia

dearest ghosts

from the apartheid

dearest ghosts from angola

and mozambique

dearest ghosts from libya

and somalia

dearest ghosts

floating in the mediterranean

until you’re dead for good

you have

to understand:


we’re busy

ocupados occupés beschäftigt

and

we admit

emotionally exhausted

from welcoming these blond-haired

blue-eyed children


as you must know

history ended


(for you)


Translated by G. Holleran


on the uselessness of flags or maybe not

i dreamed with this flag

i fought

by this flag

i helped to settle

this flag

on top of the expectant mountains

bathed

in blood


why

this flag

nothing tells me today

when

i see it defiled

by whom

always saw it

like a simple and useless

piece of cloth

to wrap the coins

accumulated along the journey?


i need to find out

new uses

for this flag


and keep fighting for it


Translated by the author


another poem about rewriting

to rewrite

in the sense of reviewing

established truths

implies losing

all respect

for them

scour

their insides

methodically separate them

expose them

to the opporbrium of crowds

until

no word

about words

is left


Translated by the author


JOÃO MELO, born in 1955 in Luanda, Angola, is an author, journalist, and communication consultant. He is a founder of the Angolan Writer´s Association, and of the Angolan Academy of Literature and Social Sciences. Currently, he divides his time between Luanda, Lisbon and Washington, D.C. His works include poetry, short stories, novels, articles and essays that have been published in Angola, Brazil, Cuba, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK, and USA. A number of his writings translated into English, French, German, Arabic, and Chinese have also appeared in anthologies, as well as in various international journals and magazines. He was awarded the 2009 Angola Arts and Culture National Prize in literature.

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tajudeen muadh akanbi poetry october 2023

the last time my brother travelled, he told me his body became a mirror where he sees fear as an aftertaste of flying.

He says, ” I’m sick of all the breaths I lost in my lungs, I’m sick of water letting me drown in it. then, I recover how he covers himself in his skin, how he wishes his home, is not a burnt skin.

Now, I learn to call nostalgia as a rejuvenescence, a revival, a poem going back into his body, as memories and as water.

my brother pronounces home, as a poem, dilapidated from the metaphors on his tongue, how he recollects himself into his skin, learning to love his past and how he covers his body with longings for days dead.


My Home, Is Not a Cadaver of Roses

that I write about grief doesn’t mean my body is a steel, I, glass. This poem opens from the footage of a CCTV capturing how a poet was kidnapped. I recite them into my nerves as stanzas dying, as verses learning the language of survival.

Sometimes, I ask if God has a voice, because a poet is God’s way of creating beauty.

a newspaper headline carries the obituary of a boy burrowed with a body bulleted, I wonder if it means my home is a hymn, a symphony. I firefly, I rose, I call this home a baby learning how to crawl from death into breath, how the mothers in this home are poems learning to write off worries that hung in them.

I know my home is not a cadaver of roses, because one day, a poet kidnapped will be freed, and God’s voice heard, a bulleted boy will learn to whole the holes in his body and a mother will one day learn the languages of joy and this home is/will be a garden I learn to tender just as I tender the griefs in this poem.


Breaking

they say you need to break into years of dust before you crawl back into yourself, I burgeon my body into wraps of refrains.

They say a poem is how we look at the sky and pluck stars, I carry myself into fireflies morphing themselves into oxygen, water and everything lucid.

I find no peace and all my wars are done.

I fear and hope, I burn, I freeze. – A poet

I break into wits and into days I run into things clinging to the past, a bildungsroman, a poem, a canvas painting my body into itself, an ode to nostalgia, and a poem resuscitating into a butterfly.


Tajudeen Muadh Akanbi is an 18-year-old young poet from Osun State, Nigeria. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in different literary magazines and journals including Kalahari Review, Wax Poetry, African Poetry Magazine, Brittle Paper, Meniscus Journal, Icreatives Review, Nanty Greens, Art Lounge, Beneath the Mask, Graveyard Zine, Eboquills, and elsewhere.  He can be found on Twitter @tajudeenmuadh01, Instagram @lightening.pen.

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vincent casaregola poetry october 2023

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

                — William Faulkner

 

Each fall, they appear, along

with all the excessive ornament

of comic death—the plastic

skeletons, the pumpkin-faced

displays of fear and faux horror—

 

while out in the yards, on lawns,

sprout Styrofoam head stones

with cotton-batting webs and

spiders from the party store—

all the fakery in the face of death.

 

But from the trees, the cheap and easy

prop can hang, a white sheet,

head stuffed with cotton, two

black eyes, and rope at the neck—

they move even in a gentle wind.

 

Children playing before and

parents within suburban homes

know not or speak not of history,

but just add more candy to the dish,

more laughter at the hanging ghosts.

 

All too recently, even now

the real “strange fruit” still hangs

on bloody nights, torch-lit for terror,

that echoed once through Meeropol’s

words, through Holiday’s aching tones.

 

Some would die and be left roadside,

some dumped in the local creek,

some buried without mark but

found later, when revolting soil

shoved the evidence to sight.

 

Bravado came from drink and common

hate to the bubba-faced men with

reddened eyes and necks, who growled

in cracker-barrel backrooms, then

donned sheets and rode horses, later pick-ups

 

to break the peaceful night with fire

and rage—the white-clothed “priests”

from the demon cult of torturing death,

who shouted fury, sweated anger, grasping

their sacramental whips and ropes.

 

Mornings after, families anxious,

then anguished found what remained,

and the cries and threnodies rang

across hills and valleys—one more

sacrifice to be taken from a cross.

 

Elsewhere, wives of the angry

washed sweat and bleached blood

from the sacrilegious night robes,

as bubba-men grunted their meals,

returned to work under reddened sun.

 

 

Fathers, mothers, today, you should know

your child’s autumn laughter curses you

before those gagging ghosts, and no

confection can sweeten the guilt, no

bleach cleanse this long legacy of blood.

 

* Note: The original song “Strange Fruit” was written by activist/teacher Abel Meeropol in the 1930s. The Billie Holiday performances and recordings of the song, beginning in 1939, made it famous.

 

8816*

[St. Louis, MO — August 2014 and After]


Merely numbers, four numbers

in sequence, signifying any

number of possible meanings


merely numbers, the address

of a common house,

on an ordinary street where


mostly unknown people

live anonymous lives, strangers

even to those footsteps away—


it was nowhere till elsewhere

the man residing fired his gun,

policing the strangers


of another street of houses

with bricks like these, and

lawns as green as these, and so


a black man died in that street,

died for being young, perhaps

proud, certainly for being


black—and he lay on pavement

in his own cooling blood

in the sun of that hot August day


and the energy that had been

his breath became a storming wind

of shock and grief and fist-raised


angry protests, that some heard

as justice, and others as rage,

till more guns were drawn


and the armored blue waves

opposed and surrounded the storm

but could not silence the wind

                                                                                                                       

and back at 8816, one or two

writers or photographers paused

to see what mysteries hid behind


curtained windows and silent brick,

behind the closed and locked doors

or beneath the still-green grass


and the man packed up and moved,

so his erstwhile neighbors passed

and wondered what next, from where—


their rumors flowed daily, weekly

to flower fears even as the season

turned cold and the leaves fell—


by Halloween, the fire pits came out

and the children tricked for treats

and the parents followed brats


with beers, and stoked more fears—

“they’re coming some day, coming

with fire, and we need be ready,


alert and ready,” and more beers

brought foggy sleep to watchers,

and a couple dumped the embers,


they thought extinguished, into bins

where hours later the embers flared

and fired the house, residents barely


escaping with breath and the clothes

on their backs, and the burnt remnant

stood an epitaph through winter months—


armed and vigilant, they seek protection

from anyone appearing darkly different,

from the brown mower or the black


delivery man, the shadow of difference,

and they believe themselves protected

from those who do not look the same

                                                                                                                       

but who, in the shadowed night, will

protect us from protectors, and who,

God knows, protects them from themselves


* 8816 was the house number address of former police officer Darren Wilson who shot and killed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, on August 9, 2014.


Child, Do Not Be Sad

[For the Parents Afraid of History]


Child, do not be sad, do not

feel the weight of the past, of

the history of fault and moral failure.


Do not be sad at the fact

of ancestors, long ago, who seized

dark strangers on darker nights


and transported them, wave

by wave, through oceans of hell

and high water nightmares.


Do not be sad, child, at the

record of crimes that made fortunes

we can now enjoy, because we


stole lands and lives, committing

genocides on peoples seeming so different

they were not people to us.


No, child, do not mourn for suffering

souls, chained in ship holds

and sold at auctions, do not fret


at the thought of those shackled

wrists and ankles, where red-rusting

iron left its mark with redder blood.


Child, do not be sad that even now,

we live well and others do not—the poor

are with us always, says the book,


so poverty is the necessary evil

suffered by those, you and I know,

are less deserving of our god’s grace.


No, child, do not be troubled in dreams

of young, dark girls, raped in the night

or in the broad daylight, by haughty masters.


Child, be not sad, do not listen to

the histories, told sotto voce, by those

who rarely have had a voice, a place.


Child, be glad to have your desires

met tenfold when others long fruitlessly

for the merest scraps of hope.


Child, you are the one blessed, anointed

in the white light of the white mind,

that reveals your chosen path above


and beyond the many who lost or lose,

the many humbled by the weight of chains

and lash, the many who remain in terror


of a night filled with shadow men, once horsed,

but now in pick-ups and vans, guns raised,

saluting their raging race of white pride.


Child, do not be sad, for we will keep you

warmly held in the arms of ignorance,

innocent of knowledge, free of truth.


Vincent Casaregola teaches American literature and film, creative writing and rhetorical studies at Saint Louis University. He has published poetry in a number of journals, as well as creative nonfiction, short fiction, and flash fiction. He has recently completed a book-length manuscript of poetry dealing with issues of medicine, illness, and loss (Vital Signs) for which he is seeking a publisher.

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Decolonial Passage is honored to announce the 2023 nominations for the Best of the Net Anthology.  This list includes writing published between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023.  Congratulations to the nominees!

Poetry

“Read the Receipts” by Nancy L. Meyer

“The Food of Our Ancestors” by Oliver Sopulu Odo

“I’ve Kept You Alive” by Mildred Kiconco Barya

“Blight” by Catherine Harnett

“We Were Always Hungry” by Leslie B. Neustadt

“Losing the Zero” by Aubrianna Snow

Short Stories

“Zain” by Sophia Khan

“Number Ninety-Four” by Mehreen Ahmed

Creative Nonfiction

“Searching for Aina in Hawaii” by Kathy Watson

“The Butterfly Harvesters” by Cheryl Atim Alexander

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Abdulmueed balogun adewale poetry september 2023

You stare into the future your eyebrows

Lined with the eyeliner of hope. You are in dire need

 

Of a miracle, like everyone in this burning city. You want

Every scent, every ounce of your past to be scratched off

 

With the claws of extinction from the chambers of your aching skull.

Once, you saw a Black lanky boy riding his jaunty bicycle down

 

The gut of this people-mourning street— a fragment of your past encroached

From behind like a thief repainting on the canvas of your mind the image

 

Of the day you almost cursed God— when on this same people-bereaved street

A cluster of wayward egret-white boys like scavengers lessened you into an item of ridicule

 

Because God— the most wise, most just— painted you Black. You are in need,

Like someone suffering from hyperglycemia, of insulins concocted with fierce reasons to live,

 

But even love— the universal lord and saviour— can’t suffice in your case,

For your figures on the scoreboard of compassion ranks you first in the file of love’s infidels.

 

All you want is the morbid rhythm of your past to be forgotten

On the wanton lips of history, you pine for going to bed every night

 

Without having your street of thoughts flooded with the bones, ashes

& the cold faces of everything you’ve buried but failed to remain dead.

 

On Rejections

Of course, I want my poems out there

In the so called big journals, first class magazines…

In between the jaws of those big literary pitbulls.


But lately, even the so called small dogs: struggling to bark, fledgling stars:

About to make their first twinkle:  aren’t even proud, willing to offer my refined truths

And well cooked lies altars to propagate their gospel.


I’ve just completed my debut chapbook manuscript, I know I am supposed

To say the title next and maybe describe the intricacies of her entrails a  little,

Say for example It’s a book of poems about so and so…, before trudging on

On the slippery road of story telling. But I won’t!


I will have you know, she’s suffered a handful of rejections

From both crude and refined surgeons and I am sure those brazen jabs

Won’t be the last to her delicate throat.


I am not complaining, neither am I calling you to book for my woes.

So don’t feel sore for me.  Shouldering my woes is my responsibility.


Of course, it’s sad to admit this, but I have to,

I am afraid of sending her to another literary surgeon, another hospital,

Another press in this city and offshore for diagnosis.


I don’t want to be shredded by another :

“Thank you for giving us the opportunity to diagnose your precious daughter,

We are sorry, saddened to inform you she doesn’t stand a chance of survival out there,

In the vast world of literature.”


Troubling! This may sound, but one day, when I am done redressing the gashes

On her delicate throat,  I shall offer that delicate throat of my only daughter again to the scalpels

Of other literary surgeons manning the decision-making  theaters

In various literary hospitals and presses.


It’s a free world, of course, you can place under scrutiny the quality of my fatherhood.

Say what kind of father keeps sending his one and only daughter to the mouth of sharks.

I will tell you, a great one. Who wants only the best for his daughter.


And as always, after dropping her off at the glassy emergency door of the hospital,

I shall be waiting outside, under the shed of a towering tree or in the back seat

Of my Mercedes Benz GLE 450 in a nearby car park, sipping patience from a blue mug,

Expecting the usual and with a glint of hope the not-so-usual response.


Abdulmueed Balogun Adewale is a Black poet and winner of the 2021 Kreative Diadem Annual Poetry Contest. He has been a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and the BOTN and a finalist in the 2021 Wingless Dreamer Book of Black Poetry Contest. He is a poetry editor at The Global Youth Review and a 2021 HUES Foundation Scholar. He prays silently in his heart, that his verses outlive him. His poems have been published in: Brittle Paper, Soundings East Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, ROOM, Watershed Review, Poetry Column-NND, The Westchester Review, The Oakland Arts Review, The Night Heron Barks Review, Subnivean Magazine, Short Vine and elsewhere. He tweets from: AbdmueedA

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robbie gamble poetry september 2023

His White girlfriend at the time passed the word

that the Gambles     of THE Procter & Gambles

who lived not far from her in Belmont

were away     on an extended trip to Hawaii

so Malcolm dressed up as a salesman

to check it out     According to the biography

they got away clean     with a pile of bed linens

and a case of Johnny Walker     It was 1945


My Dad was fourteen then      I asked if he knew

any Gamble relatives in Belmont      He squinted

said     maybe a cousin on the Sidney Gamble side

couldn’t say for sure     When I was a teen

I came home one night to find our back door

pried open     drawers strewn on the floor

My parents were away     vacationing in Maine

They said    call the police     I wielded a bat

to probe dark basement corners


When I went up to bed     the back door

still swinging     I found I wasn’t afraid     just

acutely aware    that the air in the house

had been altered      by the presence

of another     trailing through it


And what if Malcolm instead 

had looted my grandfather’s mansion

in Milton         A different Gamble    

no scotch     but plenty of silver    

and my grandmother’s jewelry

What if he had rifled his study

found the boxes      of eugenicist pamphlets

You Wouldn’t Let a Moron Drive a Train!!

or his correspondence      with Margaret Sanger


We do not want word to go out

that we want to exterminate

the Negro population 

and the minister is the man

who can straighten out

that idea if it ever occurs

to any of their more

rebellious members


How would Detroit Red have taken

to such blue-eyed devil talk


I can’t recall     what was gone

from our house that night    

and what is precious anyway   

when those possessions     don’t have the heft    

to build a home within our memory


and what are possessions anyway   

when his father died      crushed by a streetcar

and he was convinced the Klan was involved

somehow     and his mother languished

in a state asylum    and he juggled hustles

just to eat


Robbie Gamble (he/him) is the author of A Can of Pinto Beans (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in the Carve, Lunch Ticket, RHINO, Salamander, and The Sun. He is the poetry editor for Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. He divides his time between Boston and Vermont, and he can be found at robbiegamble.com

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mehreen ahmed short story september 2023

Part I

Her pale face radiant under an August setting sun, she sits on a bench at bus stop 94. There is a rusty covering above. The bench below has pastel green paint peeling off — hard, grim dour. Waiting for bus no 94; it is late. Instead of searching for an alternative route, she walks her quarter of a mile and waits. Day in and day out. Year in and year out, until one day she turns ninety-four herself.

Her tired eyes stare into oblivion, and notice a solitary, restless daisy through a lonely crack in the cemented road. It is across the bus stop, bobbing its breezy yellow head, anxious, to fly away, had it not been for its root spiralling down through the gaping, jagged cranny. She lets out a sigh; her eyes light up. All she is left with is desires nestled within the cozy warmth of her heart — a place gone cold from the wait.

Where is he? The man? Her one true love? He asks her to pick him up from this very bus stop — the last bus at 94. She wears a pink, floral sari which wraps around her young, smooth body. The bus never comes. She waits hours until the day is gone, afternoon and evening. Still, no sign of buses here. An empty, abandoned stop.

She continues to look at the empty road ahead, in case the bus arrives. The daisies are in full bloom of spring. She hears someone call her name. “Ayesha, Ayasha.” Then, “Look, look, I’m here.” She turns her head, and a shiver runs through her. She views a bare tree by the river, leaves growing out of it, disproportionately, insanely psychedelic. “Where are you, I don’t see you, I don’t see you anywhere, Mohabbat, Mohabbat. Where are you, my love? Do you see me?” Ayesha asks. Her heart is swelling. With shallow breaths of excitement, she inhales his faint hair oil dispersed in the air. Anytime, anytime he will be here and pick her up and hold her against his chest. His soft lips pressing down on her lips — ruby red; melding into rich hot chocolate cake.

Part II

At Fajr, Mohabbat Ali Khan wakes up to the sound of the azaan. It drifts through the minaret of a local mosque of his neighbourhood. He descends the narrow stairs and steps outside into a mosaic courtyard and through a floral, inlaid, arched architrave. This mosaic square is fenced in on two sides by stucco brick walls. He nearly sleepwalks toward a tap near the western wall and turns it on to do ablution, wazu, before the namaaz. He begins to wash his hands, elbows, face and ankles three times. Rinses his mouth three times, and three splashes into the nostrils — three splashes for each of the body extremities.

During the partition at the time of independence from the British, his parents opted to stay in India. After they passed, he continued to reside in the old capital of Delhi — in the same house too, the ancestral property. A blue arched house, beautifully antique. Accustomed to communal riots, love-hate relationships are common with Hindus and Christians, as well as with his Parsi friends. He grew up in a complex social system through a lot of political turmoil and was not alien to volatile situations.

From the other side of these thick walls, he hears the water trickle, as the neighbours, the Dilliwallas, are waking up.  Hot tea brews in a shack restaurant. The deep-frying smells of samosas, daal puri, parathas and omelette swim through the morning air. After prayer, Mohabbat Ali Khan steps outside the gates to go for his customary morning walks. Munshi Giasuddin, the local barber’s salon down the alley is open early, but he already has a client. He is sitting in a wooden, straight-backed chair by the roadside. Munshi is rubbing up soap on his beard and chatting away. He nods at Mohabbat as he walks past.         

Mohabbat walks a mile. His usual rounds are all the way up to the Jama Mosque, and then looping back. He usually performs Fajr at the mosque which takes care of both the namaaz as well as the morning walk. Today, however, he is pressed for time, and prays at home. He looks at the barber through the corners of his eyes and runs a finger absent-mindedly through his thick beard, twisting up his moustache, thinking that his beard also needs a trim. He walks a couple of steps ahead and sits down on a hard bench at the shack restaurant for some hot tea and samosa.

“Salaam Janaab, how are you this morning?” a tea boy asks.

“Walaikummassalam,” Mohabbbat replies over a slight cough. “Yeah, I’m very well.”

“Tea and samosas? Freshly fried,” The tea boy asks.

Mohabbat nods and sees that the tea boy is disappearing around the corner to fetch the order while he sits in the mellow morning light watching the barber’s precision cutting next door. His client spits betel saliva occasionally on the side at which the barber lifts his razor sharply away from his face.

Mohabbat has a date today with his Ayesha in an unkempt mossy garden near her house. His eyes dilute just thinking of her. He must wear her favourite hair oil today. His thought is interrupted as his order of tea and hot samosas arrive. He bites into its crunch carefully, sipping and savouring the white tea at the same time. He wants to pop into the barber shop next door after he finishes here.

Over to the barber shop, he looks at all the hair oil bottles from various brands shelved around a glassed window bay. He picks up Jaba Kushum which is her favourite. He pays up at the front and leaves the shop. The barber smiles at him; he leaves with a polite nod.

Mohabbat walks home. He enters through the gate and climbs up the stairs. He decides to take a shower before he leaves for his date. He puts on a white embroidered kurta and pajamas. He lavishly oils his hair with Jaba Kushum and runs a comb through his beard. He comes downstairs and steps out on the road; he hears howls closing in like the fury of tsunami. He sees a huge mob approaching his house; a sporadic riot is at his gate.

The bus no 94 arrives in time. Mohabbat is lucky to escape the mob’s scourge. He stands almost camouflaged against the wall’s whiteness. People enter his home, and they drag out his possessions, rattling rusty trunks, his books, his charpai bed, his father’s easy chair, hookah, and his violin, hurling them all out on the street in a heap. He says nothing. An innocent bystander, he trudges along the wall with caution until he arrives at the bus stop. He falls a few times before he is able to ascend the bus. He has a sweaty forehead — a few drops fall over his eyelids – and an already wet beard. He wonders if there’s a riot also at Ayesha’s place. He finds a window seat through the crowd. Stumbling, he sits down.

The bus is moving. He lets out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, there’s hope. He is thinking fast to start a new life with Ayesha some place safer, perhaps abroad where there’s peace and stability. As long as the bus is moving, there is some hope. He looks around him and sees panic in the wet frowns of his fellow passengers. This bus will take them away where all can rest in peace. Suddenly, an explosion catapults the bus.

Part III

Young Ayesha’s sweet pink sari comes undone; it is noosed around her neck, strangulated. The pink hue reflects a bluish blush on her silken, smooth skin. This place is eerily deserted. Doctors know better. She lies in a white starched hospital bed. Her skin is decrepit, mottling. Mohabbat is here, coming toward her. She waits; she hears his voice echoing through her comatose brain. She desires to go on a safari with him, maybe not on the unlucky 94 after all. He is smiling … she sniffs the odour … her favourite oil brushed into the strands of his hair. Glib winds whisper into her ears. Ninety-four years of wait cannot atone for this wrong. The bus has changed course. It does not come here anymore.  


        

Mehreen Ahmed is an award-winning Australian novelist born in Bangladesh. She has won multiple contests for her short fiction. Her works have been nominated for Pushcart, botN and James Tait awards. She has authored eight books and has been twice a reader and juror for international awards. Her recent publications include Litro, Otoliths, Alien Buddha, Popshot Quarterly, Metachrosis Literary, and more.

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In waters where freedom whispers in ebbs

and the road unyielding,

we seek something in nature’s solitude,

in nature’s tilt, a lisp, delicate.

Bittersweet is the hope that holds

melancholy and turbid dreams patched together

in aging vessels, where our stories lay.

Of dreams and of dreaming, something buried within

where our  lives have unraveled

From what we used to weave, hands together

with threads, pulling apart

the edges from where the sky’s shadow engulfed us.

Before we became the songs we had refused to hear   

Before our blossoms became the diaspora dance, now alien to us

Before our souls finally leave the home we carry,


And hope finds something buried within us.


The Forgotten Dance

 Within the land, we weave

  in the colors our mothers used to weave

The hues they proudly  embedded in

  the paths marked by their song

Each day wounds sought and  found

  solemn journeys guided by footsteps

Testifying for the dance


That still holds posterity, stitched together.


Lind Grant-Oyeye is a poet and literary critic of African descent. She is widely published in literary magazines globally, including New Verse News, Poetry Ireland, Radius magazine, New Orleans Review, and Books Ireland. In her view, poetry is a voice and also a medium for change.

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mira martin-parker poetry august 2023

I’m wondering if you ever reflect on your social position, function, and corresponding duty? I do. I reflect on it all the time, here on the other side of your opinions, peckings, and ideas. I ponder your shadows, try to discern their meaning, try to discern what’s valid, true, and hence sound.

Sometimes down here on this end, it feels like there’s an element of disdain—or is it contempt?—involved in what’s coming from your direction. I sense you don’t particularly care for me. Like me. I suspect you even think I’m kind of trashy, in all the many ways one can be trashy.

But I wonder about you as well. Can you be trashy, too? Or do you feel yourself obligated to be good, obligated to guide, to help others improve their trashy condition?

What are the ethical rules of your occupation? Clearly I’ve broken the social rules governing the place, for I’m definitely kept in place down here below in the cave, I mean the trash can, waiting to be picked up and taken away. Dumped.

How are things up in goodness land? Is your master, your boss, your patron being good to you? Does he love you and pay your rent, put food on your table, buy you pretty things, give you cigarettes and beer, perhaps a pretty dress, a lovely compact to check your reflection in, make sure you look nice and held together? (You’re perfect in his eyes, after all.)

There’s a scene in Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground in which Underground Man lectures a poor young prostitute. He helps her see her actual condition, what will happen to her if she doesn’t correct her course. He’s a rotten egg, a real nasty misanthrope, and he only does this guiding for selfish egotistical reasons. He’s ashamed to be caught with his pants down, after all.

But ultimately he was right, and she saw the truth and lit up. He opened her eyes to the light, it was her!She was the light, she was beautiful and good. Once she saw this, she had to leave, run, get away from that awful debt-trap, that meat grinder, that cauldron waiting to consume her.

Underground Man used his skills for good. And it worked. He saved her ass.

What about you? What’s your duty? Are you saving asses?

Or are you leading asses into meat grinders, cauldrons, and dirty beds in dirty places with dirty selfish men?

Do you ever reflect on your duty? I do. I live in the trashcan where you toss your waste.

Mira


Mira Martin-Parker earned a B.A. at The New School for Social Research, and an M.A. in philosophy and an MFA in creative writing at San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in various publications, including the Istanbul Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, great weather for MEDIA, and Zyzzyva.

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kelli green short story august 2023

I wake up at 6:00 am to the sound of my Pa’s alarm clock. He comes into my room and sits on the edge of my bed poking at my feet and telling me to get up. I beg for five more minutes, then he sighs and sings me a song until I crawl out from under the covers hoping to stop him from starting another verse.

I walk on my toes all the way to the bathroom. The floor is cold in the morning, so I have to get used to it. Sometimes I walk on my heels, but that’s harder. And Pa says I’ll fall and crack my head.

Once I fell asleep on the toilet while waiting for the water to heat up so I could wash my face. Next thing I knew, I slipped off the stool and scraped the side of my head good on the sink. Blood dripped down my face and onto the floor, all red and messy like strawberry syrup. I tried to wash the blood away, and it just got everywhere. As soon as Pa saw me, he almost passed out.

It’s a good thing Nilah was there because she’s tougher than Pa. Nilah is Pa’s girlfriend and my buddy. I don’t remember a time when Nilah wasn’t around. She doesn’t live here, but she should. She cleaned up my blood and helped Pa take me to the doctor. They said the cut was very small, and they gave me a bandage. Pa wanted me to have an X-Ray. I wanted to too, so I could see my bones, but the doctor said we didn’t need to get an X-Ray.

Nilah told me that it’s a good thing they didn’t put me in front of the X-Ray machine that day because it would be rude to take pictures of the troll that lives inside of me without warning him first. I told her that was silly, and that I didn’t have an inside troll. She swore that I did and started poking and tickling my tummy to find him.

Anyway, I didn’t crack my head this morning, and when I was done in the bathroom, I changed into my school clothes. Nilah, Pa, and I ate breakfast and talked about our plans. This weekend we’re all going to the beach, and Nilah is going to teach me to swim. She says that six years old is already old, and if I don’t learn now, I’ll never be a mermaid. She’s goofy, but I do want to learn.

After we give each other kisses and hugs, we leave the apartment. When we get to school, I give Pa another hug and run off to find my friends.

When I run, my backpack slaps my back. And I hear my pencil box rattling around. Sometimes when I stand in one place, I still swing my backpack to hear the shaking. I find my friends by the basketball courts. They’re watching the 11th and 12th graders do their morning rap battles. I can’t tell that any of them are doing well, but sometimes a kid will jump up and go “whoaaaaa” like something crazy was just said. I like watching them, and they don’t care that we’re there.

When the bell rings, everyone walks the way they’re supposed to walk. We all split off like the branches on a tree. I’m still little at this school, so my class is on the first floor. I think they do that so we don’t get lost, or maybe it’s because we’re so small that we may get knocked over on the stairs. That’s probably it because that’s exactly what happened to me one time when I had to go to another floor for my advanced reading class. Big kids will just run on your back if you fall down in their way.

I like school, but it’s a Friday so no one wants to be here. We’re all ready for the bell to ring so it can be the weekend. My friend Chloe talks to me while we do our worksheets. She tells me that this weekend her mom and dad are going on a vacation for their anniversary. While they’re gone, she gets to stay with her aunt. And they’re going to eat all the hot chips they want and watch music videos. Chloe’s mom doesn’t like for her to watch music videos with booty shaking, but her aunt doesn’t care. So, she’s excited.

I hope Nilah and Pa get married, too. When they have their anniversary, I’ll go to my Papa’s house. And we’ll play checkers and watch old movies for the weekend.

While I’m playing, I hear a teacher say something about a shooting on the South Side of the city. That’s my side of the town. I try to listen to learn more about what happened, but Mrs. Estes asks me if I need anything. I shake my head no, so she smiles and tells me to go play. I shrug and run to an open swing.

I still want to know about it, but I’ll just ask Pa to watch the news with me tonight. Shootings happen a lot though. One time, someone shot our car; but we weren’t in it. Pa found the bullet hole in his door one morning before school. In the summer it gets really bad. Pa says it’s because people get boiled in the heat like spaghetti noodles; but spaghetti loosens up, while people get hard and break.

We have art class last. I start coloring in the picture I drew of a garden, but then I feel like I need to use the bathroom. I need to use it now! I get up and ask Mr. Long if I may go to the restroom, and he says I can’t. Well, this is a problem because you can’t just say no to urine. Pa says I should use real words like urine and not pee. Nilah agreed and said that it’s easier to make people understand things if you use the right words. So, I ask Mr. Long the question again. This time I tell him I need to urinate because maybe he’ll understand that.

Now Mr. Long looks frustrated, and he tells me if I ask him again, he’ll call my father. I ask him if I can go after he calls Pa. He looks at me funny and asks if I’m trying to be smart. Well, of course, I am. I don’t think anyone tries to be stupid on purpose. I ask to go a third time. He says yes and tells me again he will be calling Pa. I say, “Thank you,” I rush to the bathroom, and I make it just in time.

When class is over, Mr. Long lets me know that Pa said he was coming to pick me up right after the last class. Mr. Long tells me he’ll be waiting to talk to him. I say, “Okay” and go back to my coloring. I wonder why Pa is coming early. Is it to make sure I got to the bathroom okay? I still don’t know why calling him made any difference, but maybe it did if he’s coming early.

When the last bell rings, I wait by the globe with Chloe. And we tell stories about where we’ll take our vacations one day. I didn’t know Pa had come in until I heard Mr. Long say my name. Mr. Long told him I kept asking to go to the bathroom even though he said I couldn’t. Chloe makes an “oooh” sound, and now I understand. He must think Pa will be mad at me just like he is, but that’s silly because Pa knows how much I have to use the bathroom. He says I’m bad for road trips.

Pa doesn’t look interested while Mr. Long talks, and soon I hear him say that he doesn’t have time for this. They say some other things I can’t really hear because Chloe talks a lot.  Finally, Pa holds his hand out for me to take and I say, “Goodbye” to Chloe and Mr. Long.

When we get to the car, Pa straps me in. And I ask him why he came early. He looks at me kind of funny and opens his mouth to answer. Then instead of answering me, he swallows his words like sour candy. Then he smiles and says he wanted to start the weekend early. He gets in the car, and we drive for a long time. We listen to the 70’s station which is my favorite.

After a while, we pull into a big parking lot; and I see the words Kidz World. I shout out the name because I’m so happy. I’ve never been here, but I hear it’s super fun. Pa gets me a wristband and I trade my shoes for fun socks. I ask him if he wants to go through the tunnels with me, but he says he wants to sit down for a while. That makes me sad, but it’s okay. I’ll explore for us both. I crawl through the colorful tubes and rush down the slides, pretending I’m a secret agent trying to complete a mission.

I wish Nilah were here to play. They have trampolines, and she’s good at flipping. I want her to teach me that too. I could learn how to do flips like the cool spies I see on TV. I could be a spy a lot easier than I could be a mermaid.

I finally get Pa to jump with me for a while, but I get tired quickly. After we’re done playing, Pa and I go get dinner at our favorite seafood restaurant. I order fried shrimp and a bowl of fruit. We say our dinner prayers and then Pa asks a waitress to sit with me for a second while he runs to the bathroom. He comes back fast but his eyes look weird like he was crying or had allergies. He gives the waitress three dollars for sitting with me.

Pa’s phone keeps buzzing. He finally puts it on silent, but he flips it up so he can see who’s calling or texting. He never answers any of the calls or messages though. I ask Pa again what’s wrong as a tear rolls down his cheek before he could hide it. He tells me there isn’t anything wrong as he puts money on the table. I cross my arms and frown because we aren’t supposed to lie. He nods his head and says he will tell me what’s wrong but not yet. He tries to get me to order a dessert, but I’m not hungry anymore.

In the car, I sit back and watch the lights dance in the window as we drive home. On the radio, I hear a man say something about a shooting and Pa immediately switches it off.

“Pa wait!” I call out. “I think they talked about that at school. It’s on our side of town.”

Pa shakes his head and says he wants to hear something else right now and then changes to the cd player. We drive a little longer, and we get to the street we normally turn down to go home. It’s the street where Nilah’s beauty shop is. And every time we pass by, I wave; even though I know she probably isn’t in the window looking. But instead of turning, we drive right past it. I twist around to make sure I saw the street right, and there it was right there with Jimmy’s Chicken on the corner.

“Pa, you missed your turn.”

Pa shakes his head again and tells me he wanted to go a different way. He’s being so weird tonight, and I don’t like it.

“Is Nilah going to be home before bedtime tonight?” I ask. I need someone normal to talk to. Maybe Nilah can tickle out whatever weird troll has found its way into his stomach. Pa doesn’t answer me. And I know he heard me because he looked in the rearview mirror at me when I asked. I begin to re-ask the question, but I get a bad feeling in my tummy.

“Kayla, we have to talk about something important when we get home.” Pa’s voice sounds weird, and it makes my tummy feel worse. I don’t say anything. I sink into the back of my seat, and I can’t help but tap the side of the door with my foot. I don’t know why I’m doing that, but I can’t stop it.

Pa doesn’t want to hear about the shooting, and he doesn’t want to talk about Nilah. And I’m scared. I once watched a movie with Nilah and Pa. And in the movie, a family heard a gunshot. They all got on the ground so if something came through the window, they wouldn’t get hit. So, if something like that happened near her shop, I know Nilah would know to get down. Right?

So, I try to tell myself that Nilah will be home when we get home, and then Pa will tell us what’s wrong. We finally pull into our parking spot at home. I hold Pa’s hand and look up and down the street hoping I spot Nilah’s car. We get inside, and Pa takes his jacket off and hangs it up. Pa starts to talk and says that this morning something bad happened, and I immediately cover my ears. Pa puts his hand on my back, but I don’t want to take my hands down. I don’t want to know about Nilah’s blood, red and messy like strawberry syrup. I want her to just come home and tickle me. I want her and Pa to have a big wedding and anniversary trips. I want to go swimming and learn how to be a mermaid after all.

I take my hands off my ears and wrap my arms around Pa. I want to stay like this forever. I want us to stay frozen right in this spot, and then, at least, I can’t say for sure that I know anything is wrong. As long as Pa doesn’t say the words, then I can still wait for Nilah to walk in the door. Pa tries to talk to me again, and I squeeze him harder.

“Five more minutes,” I beg.

Pa rubs my back, and I can feel his tears raining on my head. He sings me a song, and I pray for a million verses.


Kelli Green is a writer, creator, and lifelong learner.  Green is from Chicago but has lived in Pensacola, Florida for most of their life. The author of three books, May, Elizabeth, and Cool and a host of poems, Green loves writing and storytelling and has always been intrigued by the creative world. The story, “Kayla’s Day,” is a narrative mixed with fictional and non-fictional events. You can find Kelli Green at @kelligreenivy on twitter, instagram, and tiktok.

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dibyasree nandy poetry august 2023

The floating white fire in the night sky dims

An outline looms, is golden-hewn

Across the crag, beyond the clouds

Our home seen in the horizon.

 

It’s no mere delf, a realm at the hilly toe

Halls of diamond, a silver grotto from days of old

Far down below, rills of jewels

Fall and tumble, fountains still flow.

 

At the cliff’s edge, we gaze and smile

Happy faces once weather-beaten

We traipsed for miles, our heads covered

To hide the shame that we lost our abode.

 

In rain and storms of hail, we bled

Our eyes focussed on the end

Where the thrush and eagles will fly

Oak and pine will welcome us soon

The scent of air, guide and chaperone.

 

We murmur notes of fog and snow

Passing by rocks of jagged stone

Through towns of wealth and lakes distrait

Inching closer, waiting domicile.

 

The quarters always gleamed bright

Seats of silks, burnished floors, a crystal sight

Our looks of hope, well-pleased, content

Even before we tapped on the door.

 

For those asleep, we play a song

For those missing, we sound the bell

We walk past fields and stacks of hay

The vales recounting the number of days.

 

If we falter, our brothers will support

If we are wounded, our mates will heal

A family knit, red-threaded unit

To stand beside in dire need.

 

The floating white fire in the night sky dims

An outline looms, is golden-hewn

Across the crag, beyond the clouds

The mountains call, a lullaby for home.

 

 

Dibyasree Nandy began writing in 2020, after completing M.Sc and M.Tech. She has authored poetry and short-story collections, as well as full-length fiction. Her works have appeared in more than 60 anthologies and literary journals.

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olivia andrade poetry july 2023

fourteen years old

on a westward-bound plane

i become an american.

not really,

i was always

american and mexican and

mexican-american and

just another

foreigner, especially

to those who’d say:


watch the way those people talk,

why is that daughter’s skin dark

when her mother’s is white

let’s charge them 200 yuan

instead of 50

but my mother is good at bartering

na tai gui la

we don’t need the extra 150 yuan

like they must


in the lift they ask where

i come from and i

respond, to their astonishment

in poorly-toned mandarin

with a place i barely know

but to them have more in common with

than my real home, right past

the bustling road

in the gated culdesac of

high-rise apartments reserved for

wealthy chinese diplomats

and expats, like us


english at home, english at

school, except for an hour

mandarin in the metro station

spanish when grandma calls

que inteligente son mis chinitos

american when my british friends

call it football

i stop calling it soccer, too


four years old, i hold my nose in the fish market,

savour the salmon my ayi brings home

in the basket of her little black moped

street stinky tofu stains my nostrils

sweet tanghulu strips them clean

let’s get family market baozi for the freezer

the ones with red inside, not green

if the video pirates are outside the store

can we watch something new tonight?


taxi cabs go

requested, but unhailed

because we look like we

probably don’t speak

mandarin. sometimes we catch one

only for it to be sent away by my

father, it has no seatbelts, laura

the roads are dangerous here, you know

but i was upset

because it was one of those cabs

with a TV in the back


the plane lands firmly

you’re home, you must feel so at home

i roll my suitcase

into a home with

fifty fewer stories

welcome back to the land of

grocery aisles miles long,

not kilometers

you love doritos, don’t you?

welcome back to

drive-thrus and

trash trucks,

youtube and

tap water

no more water bottles

to brush our teeth

this is your home.


everyone asks

what it was like to grow up

in china

but no one has

asked what it was like

to grow up in

a bubble of

america that is not america,

in some ways

not even close


Olivia Andrade is an English major at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo pursuing an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in music. Despite being of Mexican-American heritage and born in Pasadena, California, Olivia grew up in Hong Kong and Shanghai, China. She is a trained vocalist with a lifetime of experience and has worked as a vocal instructor. A lifelong lover of poetry and lyricism, she writes her own songs and performs them in the San Luis Obispo area with her band, 7blu. After graduation, she will embark on a career as a professional songwriter. Find her on instagram at ohliiveeyuh

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sophia khan short story july 2023

The first thing Zain decided to do when he landed in New York City was walk.

He walked for blocks and blocks, breathing in air that throbbed in his skin, crawled into his lungs and choked him on the vast matrix of the city. He longed to touch the metal of the subway and see if it was as cold as it looked. He wanted to go to Brooklyn so he could come back to London and agree with his colleagues at the fin-tech start-up, that Bed-Stuy had become too gentrified.

He had never been to New York, and the journey thrilled him whilst his nerves also rattled like loose change. He sat on the plane at London Heathrow, looking outside, waiting for it to roar its monstrous engine, engulfing his ears and making him hold his breath, saying ‘Bismillah’ as it sped along the runway.

He wasn’t planning on seeing family in America, but his Amma had let it slip to relatives in New York that her son was coming, mainly for work.

‘Tell him that his cousin Jamal wants to invite him for dinner. He insists.’

Panic had risen in Zain. He was already anxious about landing at JFK airport, possibly being questioned about his Muslim surname. To make the journey and see Jamal all these years later, after what happened seemed too much. But he acquiesced for his mother’s sake.

It would be fourteen years since he’d seen his cousin on his Abba’s side. He remembered the remote, intense, forbidding presence in Jamal. The sky he kicked the football into was not the same as Zain’s sky. The shaved, zig-zag lines on the side of his head did not look the same as it did on other boys. It was cooler, sharper, more threatening. He often took two steps back when there was a crowd huddling in conversation at a gathering. Always slightly further out, aloof, never wanting for company. So when, aged fifteen, he upped and left with his parents to move to Queens in New York, everyone was surprised apart from Zain.

When Jamal started following him on Instagram two years back, he thought about removing him. But then he became curious, checking Jamal’s posts every now and then which were mainly of his two daughters and his wife, an Algerian American who wore hijabs in pastels. Sometimes he posted flowery pictures of his favourite hadiths. Only one picture showed Jamal. He had a short, crisp beard, and his big eyes and nose no longer stuck out the way they used to, but rather had smoothed into his face, soaking up the rest of his features.

Would Zain tell him everything about his life? About his boyfriend Tarun, who was half Jamaican and half Indian and cooked him a meal every evening? Then there was Ahmed, the lover they took into their bed twice a week, who ate breakfast with them wearing a silk robe, a gentlemanly version of the titans they had been in bed the night before.

Would it surprise Jamal to hear about these things? Maybe not.

As the plane took off, Zain mulled over those days they spent in their youth. Jamal grew up to be more of a man than him. That’s what he envied. Not because Zain loved other boys but because Jamal had a certain steeliness in his masculinity. He walked silently with a single cigarette behind his ear, big puffer jacket shielding his body as protection from the police carrying out stop and search on the tube. His trainers as white as snow, his gold chain, his talking about girls and pussy and teachers at school who were as dumb as fuck. Whereas Zain felt too soft, too yielding and vulnerable, always looking for approval everywhere he went. Sometimes, the fear of making eye contact with others became too strong in case they could see deep into his pain. But with Jamal, Zain couldn’t hide.

#

“You wanna kick a ball about?”

“Sure.”

It happened the day Jamal slept over when they would all be travelling to a family wedding together.

The grass was damp from the morning’s drizzle; Jamal kept consciously looking at his trainers whilst Zain looked at Jamal. Did he know? Did he know that Zain felt like he was about to blow himself up with secrets? He tried to tackle him and get the ball off him, but Jamal was too good.

“Pussy, come and get it.”

It hurt being called pussy. He tried to throw Jamal down, but he wasn’t strong enough and soon the stronger boy had him in a headlock, fists clenched, and knuckles fastening themselves like bolts under his jawline. He held him in so tight that Zain couldn’t breathe and started beating him in his stomach, his legs, his arms, fighting to be set free. But something shifted. Whether Jamal had released Zain out of pity or it was done out of mercy, Zain wasn’t sure, but tears were streaming down his face from feeling choked. He hit his aggressor square on the jaw, seeing the blood come out of his mouth with satisfaction.

“Good,” Jamal said. “Good, good.”

They sat together on the step, Jamal with a crumpled tissue on his lips to stop the blood flowing.

“I’m sorry man.”

Jamal lifted his palm up though he was looking straight ahead. They sat in silence for what felt like years. The most painful, raw silence Zain had ever felt in his life.

Later that evening, Amma told Zain that Jamal would have to share his bed. “It’s only for one night.”

His single bed could just about house both of their slender bodies. He could hear Jamal’s breathing, deep in sleep. Except Jamal wasn’t sleeping, and he wanted to move his hand along to see if he was as hard as he was.

Their bodies found each other under the covers. Jamal’s hands were delicate but brutal, murdering his body with tenderness. His mouth was warm and wet, cleansing the hurt out of every bone, every organ. When Zain woke up the following morning, his soul felt rearranged. All the objects in the bedroom from his comb to his school books felt charged with power.

But Jamal did not look at him at breakfast and during the wedding sat as far apart from him as he possibly could. The silvery shimmer in his eyes had turned to flint, and Zain knew that there would be no more football and no more sleepovers. It wouldn’t be long before he would hear from his Amma that Jamal’s family would be moving to America.

Ever since, Jamal would come to mind, less so over the years, but still with a jolt. He thought of him when seeing a group of men on the bus, victorious with fighting from the night before, or when he sat in a pub with a bunch of post-graduates, suffocating under the weight of their intellectualism, looking for a way out, into something real.

#

He closed his eyes as the plane landed and bounced along the runway.

At passport control he tensed up, but he was let through with apparent ease.

He grabbed his suitcase and exited the airport, the air feeling smooth in its warmth.  He hailed a cab and upon sitting inside, took out the crumpled piece of paper with Jamal’s address on it.

“Where to, brother?” the cab driver asked. His name badge said Hafiz.

“I’m not sure,” Zain replied.


Sophia Khan is a writer, teacher, and graduate of King’s College London. Currently residing in the city where she completed her studies, she is a member of REWRITE London — a community organisation for writers that supports and champions Black Women and Women of Colour. She is presently on their mentoring program and has been published in their online magazine. Sophia is currently working on a collection of short stories set in the UK and in Bangladesh.