try again to push me under
right as my lungs are ready to release their scream for air
i work the knot loose & the net falls away
into the dark depth of the water i come back up
& gasp hungry breaths each gulp of air dragging
sharp nails along my throat
yasmeen grabs my hand & helps me throw my arms
over the tire & together we kick our way back to shore
Yesterday & Tomorrow
we stumble along the riverbank
yasmeen limping beside me
i turn to her & fill with unexpected pity
at the sight of her struggling forward
shrunken by fear & somehow smaller than me
& somehow no longer a threat
no longer some ominous spirit
no longer any better than me any taller
her breath is ragged & i stop to let her rest
before we walk back along the road
vaguely pointed toward our parents’ house
everything a little quieter in the approaching dusk
our dripping hair & clothes making us shiver
in the cooling air
i sneak glances at yasmeen hunched & unsure
silent in the awkward aftermath of our struggle
& i feel a surge of resentment
i curse my stupid sense of responsibility
to this spirit-girl who still probably wants me dead
who probably would not have saved me
if our places in the water
had been switched
who pushed me into it in the first place
she is quiet biting her lip
& seems to be squirming inside her skin
as i watch her before the anger dawns on her face
to match mine you don’t know what it’s like for me
living nowhere existing nowhere
stuck watching between worlds
watching you waste all the life you’ve been given
all that love you’ve been given
you have no idea what you have
& have the nerve to wish it all away
to wish yourself away you’re the one
that summoned me, stupid
all this talk of wishing you’d been born me
instead of yourself you called me over
invited me to take the life & make it mine
since you clearly have no use for it
moaning & stuck obsessing over the past
some man that never wanted us to begin with
since you love yesterday so much
why not just stay here
watching history happen like some dumb movie
that doesn’t need your participation
& let me do the work of actually living
of actually filling that life you’ve barely touched
she’s right & i hate her for it
& the shame prickles at my warmed skin
as i think back to each time i wished myself gone
wished myself another life
leaving my mother & haitham
behind in the old one
twilight settles around us the darkening sky
simultaneously brilliant & deep
the moon a perfect orb suspended in the nameless color
& for a moment i look up in wonder
wishing yasmeen would leave me alone
to see the country that was kept from me
go away i hiss at her & she rolls her eyes
i wish i could but in case you haven’t noticed, stupid,
i have to go wherever you do
our fates are bound until we figure this out
i promise i’m not hanging around because i like you
& the frustration builds
until i want to tear out my own hair
stop calling me stupid
Dusk
the gate to the house to find my mother slipping out
alone & hurrying down the twilit street
sandals slapping against her heels
yasmeen & i jog to catch up to her just as the gate
to hala’s house opens to let her in & we’re barely inside
before the gate clangs shut
& hala is leading us around the side of the darkened house
we turn in to a back courtyard & the darkness is forgotten
in a cluster of chairs arranged under a string of lanterns
a buzz of laughter & talk & clinking glasses of mint tea
as aisha is whispering you didn’t have to host tonight
with everything that’s happened hala cuts her off
i already promised & it was too late to cancel it’s fine
my mother holding court with her friends
laughing & teasing & talking more than i’ve ever heard her
i understand why people want to leave but i couldn’t live
anywhere else away from everything i love it here
& i know things can get better but who will fix it
if we all leave?
khaltu hala laughs & calls her a nationalist & my mother
not yet my mother just aisha throws her head back
to join the laughter
then points up into the night sky why go anywhere else
when we have all the stars & another friend calls out
here comes the romance aisha’s face is dreamy as she curls
both feet up into the chair sandals forgotten in the dust
imagine growing up here in our parents’ time she muses
when the country was just born the elegant way our mothers
would dress
all the independence songs & all that promise hala pulls
the cigarette from her mouth & laughs again
my nostalgia monster here i miss haitham with a pang
i don’t mean to interrupt the poem
but it’s time to put some music on & a song
rings out into the night & aisha unfolds
her legs to dance
The Lesson
the song begins crackling through the speakers
& i love this one i sing it to myself & watch
aisha & amal & all the women i’ll never know
swaying & clapping & tossing their hair around
to the song & when it’s done something percussive
& powerful takes its place one of the traditional
dances i love & as my mother steps into
the center of the circle i feel myself rising
to echo her she strikes her foot against
the dust & i mirror her movements i bring
my hands to my face in the coy motion she taught me
& swing my hair from side to side i watch her
in her element & feel myself in mine something
in me clicks & stays put & i feel suddenly fluent
in my body in the knowledge that my waist will move
as i tell it to that my back will arch in the exact shapes
of hers & as i twist my head in time to the song’s
final notes i catch yasmeen sitting up alert
watching me in awe how do you do that?
i keep moving as i answer what do you mean?
i don’t know, i don’t know what to call it it’s like
you were the music like your body was the song
how do you do that?
& it begins to dawn on me slowly at first
then all at once yasmeen, have you never
danced? & she cuts her eyes at me
don’t talk to me like you’re sorry for me
in case you weren’t following what i’ve been trying
to tell you i haven’t exactly had a body
before this stupid little adventure so no
i guess i’ve never danced before & wait
no what are you doing & i am pulling her up
to join me her protests slowing as i arrange
her limbs as i turn to face her okay, first
with your right & at first her movements
are jerky uncomfortable but by the fourth song
her eyes are closed & the music has settled itself
into her muscles & the movements have begun
to take mirroring mine & a few feet away
my mother puts her body through the exact motions
the three of us in parallel
An Alternate Possibility
we sit in a new silence shy in the aftermath
of our brittle sisterhood watching the ebb & flow
of the party & eventually i’ve had my fill
even the thrill of the old songs i love not enough
to silence my racing head
i turn to yasmeen sprawled out in the dust beside me
catching her breath i nudge her with my foot & she scowls
sits up ready for another fight until i raise
my hands in surrender
i just wanted to ask you something i protest
& she flops back onto the ground & in her silence i press on
i don’t really understand your whole thing are you a jinni
or, like, some kind of spirit or something?
where were you before i started, i guess, summoning you?
were you trying to steal some other life? she doesn’t answer
& instead shoots back a question of her own
why did you summon me? you have this whole big beautiful life
& you’re just wasting it, wishing yourself out of it.
how could you not want it? & i cast about for the words
to explain it’s not that i don’t want the life
i love my mom & haitham & khaltu hala & mama fatheya
& there’s a lot of stuff that makes me happy a lot of the time
it’s me i wish were different i love them & i guess part
of loving them is wishing i were better, a better
version of myself which i always imagined as you
but i guess you’re not actually you? i still need
you to explain it to me. did i, like, invent you?
moments pass & she does not speak i lean forward
to ask again & she begins
i already told you i am an alternate possibility
trying to become a person i don’t even know how
to explain it to you it’s like i’m asleep for years at a time
until a living possibility starts to fade
& i see an opening the memory fades before i wake back up
i basically don’t exist without some sort of animating mission
without the pursuit of being born that’s all i want, you know
to be born
it’s not even your life i want i just want a life any life
i want a person to become to wake me up for good
i want a body that is mine actually mine
a body i feel fluent in
do you actually understand how boring it is
waiting to be made possible?
A Life
yasmeen continues all this stuff you love the music,
the dancing, your mom, haitham i don’t have any of it
i don’t have anything like it & it’s all i want
i want a favorite song & i want to know if a guava tastes
the way it looks i want to shine with sweat
& change colors in the sun i want to watch television
& memorize whole stretches of movie dialogue like you
& haitham do i want the feeling of sitting in hot water
& to be afraid of heights or dogs or the dark
i want to ride the bus & give someone directions
i want to shell pistachios & bite my nails & get the hiccups
from laughing too hard i want to shield my eyes from the sun
i want eyes that are mine to shield & skin that is mine
i want goose bumps & armpits that go damp & i want arms
that are too hairy or feet that are too large
or anything i’ll take anything any version of a life
& with a gasp she sits up my features blurring out
of her face i don’t think i was supposed to tell you
any of that
Yasmeen
her features flicker in & out like her whole body
is shimmering with static hair switching from color
to color different noses & eyes & mouths arranging
themselves for a moment before blurring out again
she shakes her head hard & the face settles for a moment
one gray eye & one brown mouth full of large
horsey teeth this is bad she whispers
a new nose shimmering in to replace the last one
Yasmeen
she begins stumbling around the party her every
warping feature pleading wordlessly to me for help
i scramble to my feet & hurry toward her just as
she crashes into a small table holding half-drunk glasses
of hibiscus juice
before careening toward another table holding
the cassette player & i watch in horror as she trips
over the cord knocking the source
of all the party’s music to the ground & in the new silence
the guests have stopped dancing watching
as something they cannot see destroys the party around them
yasmeen’s face is shining with tears as the body continues
to knock itself against a tree like it is trying to rid
itself of her & before i can reach her mama fatheya
emerges from the house
a clay incense burner in her hand billowing dense coils
of smoke reciting something i don’t understand
i watch in horror as the smoke wraps itself around yasmeen
her scream an otherworldly sound & when the smoke
clears she is gone
Spirits
mama fatheya lifts an upended chair back into its place
& heaves herself into it as the younger women clamor
around her she waves away the proffered glass of water
no reason to worry, no reason to be afraid you all should know
what happens when you play loud music at twilight
when the veil between the spirit world & ours is thinnest
you’ll call them to our side some of them are harmless
but i think this one was particularly nasty
& something in me bristles at hearing
yasmeen described like that like some sort of monster
hearing someone who doesn’t even know her just decide
what she is what she’s like & with a jolt of panic
i realize i don’t know where she’s gone if she’s ever
coming back she isn’t evil she didn’t choose
to be this way
i am haunte
d by the memory of her scream the sound
of someone in terrible pain a pain she didn’t deserve
when all she ever tried to do was live
Alone
in a corner of the garden i sink
into the soft dirt my back against the trunk
of a tree wafting gentle notes of jasmine
my heart’s painful percussion showing no signs
at first of slowing until it finally does
& i am left in silence with yasmeen’s absence
i thought i’d be relieved i no longer
have to fight for my name but i’m still here
with no idea how to leave how to go home
i’m left with no one else to talk to no one
who can see me & she was taken so quickly
i’ve lost her & the loss takes its place
among my other losses & breaks my heart
in new ways i could have helped her
i’ve always been the one with everything
i’ve always been the one with something to give
Alone
time passes & the ruined party continues to disperse
a few stray guests help rearrange the fallen furniture
& gingerly gather the scattered shards of glass
i don’t know where to go i don’t know what comes next
& the weariness i’ve staved off for what feels like days
finally soaks into my body i want to go home
to my mother my life my world where there is room
for me my world where i have a name where i am not alone
& in the midst of this thought something is pulling me
to my feet hands that feel solid as my own
but as i look around wildly
i see no one there
Yasmeen
nima, it’s me & the voice is yasmeen’s we don’t have
a lot of time but i’m here to help i don’t have much longer
but i want to get you home & i hear the tears in her voice
i tighten my hold on the hand in mine yasmeen, wait
there has to be some way & she cuts me off i don’t want it
anymore your life i don’t want to take it from you it’s yours