Inshallah…
(For Sharjeel Imam)
I say Inshallah with ellipses…
they say it's a grammatical error
they don't know resistance
but i know Sharjeel
and you know for sure that
Inshallah is a hope against the despair
of the same smell of the handcuffs
or the foods, or the stagnant time
that flows with the same mundanity.
Inshallah… is not justice
but the journey you embark upon in the absence of it…
You say Inshallah and then it reverberates
dates after dates
before it gets a renewal on the next date.
When you utter inshallah
I see the broken syntax of the word justice crawling before the state and you and millions other words
are sloganeering…
Inshallah…Inshallah…Inshallah…
Inshaallah is a hope
How will they incarcerate the ellipses too?
Umar Khalid
They want you to make an example:
A demonstration of how not to be an
Umar Khalid
What they don't know
It's not you but them haunting us to be an Umar—the hope and the light.
Now tell us without the hope and the light
How can we reach the end of this dark tunnel?
Gulfisha Fatima
Looking at you
I see how resistance is writing
its name in your smile to
guide us in this dark time.
Language
(How it would be like if we start a day with love then?-My lover asks)
My language has long been killed
I’m Bangladeshi to some
And anti national to many
If I write
I’m a slut
If I don't
I am killed voiceless
If I'm in America
I’m Renee Nicole Good
If I’m in India
I’m Gauri Lankesh/Gulfisha Fatima
Surekha Bhutmange/India’s millions unnamed daughters
My clit is Sharamgah to you
My body is a warzone
In which language do you want to make love this morning?
*Renee Nicole Good: The woman shot dead by a federal immigration agent(ICE) in the US state of Minneapolis
*sharamgah: place of modesty/private parts/genitals.
