islamophobia
at its finest
you couldn't have spoken truer words
three years before injustice
fell cascading down upon your head
like rocks
each one labeled
hate
fear
terror
and it's that label, drenched in your blood
that begs and screams to be renounced
i am not a terrorist
no,
you aren't, but every pale-skinned man
who doesn't know the pigment in your skin
as anything but dirt
couldn't see the difference
so yet, we fight
for you
your love, your voice
for every child that lives in fear
we will charge on
your skin tone
is not a death sentence
and the media who doesn't know 
their right from their united left
will hear us
we do not need you
we do not need you
we do not need you
us many times as God will give us strength
we will charge on
for you
for them
for Palestine
for Syria
for every fear-filled child
we will remember
and for each one fallen,
trapped beneath the rocks
hate, fear, terror
we will set you free

I say I'm a Muslim, but I can't tell anymore.
I can't tell from what goes in my mouth,
what comes out and hits you on the cheek
worse than a slap, harder than a mere insult.
I'm outraged, but what reason do I have?
On the outside I could be anyone,
and I usually am.
Sometimes I am Puerto Rican, Lebanese, or Black--
a child asked me once, and I just smiled back.

How sweet would it be to take every crayon from the box,
even now that the numbers have multiplied and
what was once simple 8, 12, 24, 36,
has exploded into a million colors with a million names,

to crush them into bitty pieces and swirl the mixture with water;
make it all into One.

so that if we hate another
(what other?)
we just hate ourselves.

I say I'm a Muslim, and I know I am
because when I give up all my frustrations and
my toddler tantrums, and I even give up yoga,
or rather it gives me up, thankfully so,
when I injure my back: I'm grateful for that.
What a knowing presence God is to take away that which harms
and restore that which fulfills.

But even to those who are still hurting
(and I often am)
there are these small remembrances that come
between this onset of tears and the next.
Whether the sun peers through the dusty blinds,
the ones you need to clean again--so soon,
and you see the light stream through, faintly at first,
until you are forced to open your eyes,
to remove yourself from the hate you've stewed in:
how simple is that?

I say I'm a Muslim, and it's a choice
I make every day or avoid until the next day,
even though that day may not be easily given.
And I forget that.
But when I see life slip away from young lives, old lives,

lives not yet born

then I have to remember
that I do not have the answers,
and every time I try to be dictator of my destiny
I fail miserably, miserably, miserably.

And now that I wrote this poem
and I felt myself think, no, truly feel for the first time in a week,
that my robotic expression has melted into a frown that stands
a chance at becoming a smile.

Now that I am human I am a Muslim.
Not perfectly so, but decidedly so.

(In memory Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha)

84:
i have discovered i am i have been attached somebody attached strings to me and often wrenches violently upon them,
Breton has strings too, and sometimes
he likes to twitch.  

85:
dead space.
              i ca
                      n  ’t, i can't think,
everything is a mirror,
                             ym deah sdeen ot ehteabr,                
                            my head needs to breathe,                              
                        ­     ehtaebr ot sdeen daeh ym,  
im going  to make holes  with breton to   breathe so i can think,
i only need a nail
                           or some thorns and wire. Breton is probably hiding some wire. I am good at finding things.  

86:
when my kneecaps turn blue,
i know my health’s shot to ****.

Breton ran into Old Mathers              
in the basement              
and Mathers says Breton’s not coming up (for [quite!] a long time).  

Kat told me **** little Breton for his marrow,
never enough marrow,
Mathers says.            
I listen to Kat, always go by Kat,              
always by Kat, always:

*Death came too close to me,
  Almost seeing the eternal light.  
  Harder to feel when you’ve almost died,  
  Hopes and dreams never almost tried.
  In His eyes,  your time to go:  
  Having this purpose for me in life,
  Having this purpose for now,
  I do not know.