If They Come for Us

Everyone wants Kashmir but no one wants Kashmiris. Aren't I a miracle? A seed that survived the slaughter & slaughters to come. I think I believe in freedom I just don't know where it is. I think I believe in home, I just don't know where to look.

Every year I manage to live on this earth I collect more questions than answers.

How many poems must you write to convince yourself you have a family? Everyone leaves and you end up the stranger.

when'd the west set in your bones? you survive each winter like you were made for snow, a stranger to each ancestor who lights your path. your parents, dead, never taught you their language -- stranger to everything that tries to bring you home.

Every year I managed to live on this earth I collect more questions than answers.

Mashallah I claim them all my country is made in my people's image if they come for you they come for me too... … I see you map my sky the light your lantern long ahead & I follow I follow

I didn't know I need to worry about them until they were gone.

I'm ten//and haven't been hugged in a long time./Allah made a barrier between me & my/mom./Ullu makes a barrier between me & my aunt.//When he leaves we sit at the base of the blue/wall/& I laugh loud so Auntie A knows/I'm alive & okay & she laughs loud so I know//she hasn't left & we sit like this for hours,/hands/pressed to the felt, laughing, laughing/unable to see each other.

Old Country Buffet, where our family went on the days we saved enough money. ...Here, our family reveled in the American way of waste, manifest destinied our way through the mac & cheese...

Mashallah I claim them all my country is made in my people's image if they come for you they come for me too... I see you map my sky the light your lantern long ahead & I follow I follow

Do all survivors carry villian inside them?