2013 in Bosnia

It had been fourteen years too long since I

faced the sea and visited my homeland.

My mother crumbled and let herself cry

when she stumbled into her father’s hands.

Two decades went by with no progress made;

rocky dirt roads and bullet-stricken homes,

thousands of natives without any aid,

families still search of beloved bones.

There was a famous river that once bled

red from my neighbors; it had overflown.

Bosniaks packed their belongings and fled,

watching their step, in fear of getting blown.

For a land so scarred, never will you see

stars in the night sky painted perfectly.

“we accept the love we think we deserve,”

or so it goes

they’re the warmth that keeps you safe in winter.

with them there is no similar beauty,

so shower them with all the care, gently.

the stars in their eyes is all you desire.

with a subtle touch starts to glow a fire.

when two souls love, they grow a family.

through time, they create their story, steadily.

sacrifice through all things sweet and bitter.

You show you care with the spit of a word.

You show your love with a punch to the eye.

You kiss as if it all never occurred.

You laugh at the abuse that you deny.

So content with all the trauma you stirred,

you seize your chance for one more loving lie.

America, you were late for them

will you wait

until your racist white president tells women in congress to

“go back to where they came from”

solely because of the color of their skin?

will you wait

until you find another Sadie Robert Joseph,

an activist and founder

of an African American museum in Baton-Rouge,

suffocated to death in the trunk of a car?

will you wait

until Marshae Jones, who was five months pregnant,

is shot at, resulting in a miscarriage,

and is charged with manslaughter of her own unborn child?

will you wait

until Elijah’s throat has been slit

by a white man because he felt threatened by the 17-year-old for simply listening to rap music in his own car?

will you wait

until another young white man

walks into another school

and murders another eleven students?

will you wait until they deem it as a mental health issue

again?

will you wait

until Sandra Bland dies in police custody,

three days after Brian pulls her over at a traffic stop and tells her

he will drag her and light her up,

all the while pointing a stun gun at her?

will you wait

until Kalief Browder hangs himself because no one cared

to check on his mental health

after three years in jail and two years extra in solitary confinement,

even though he was innocent?

will you wait

until a Latin mother is separated from the child she birthed

as they both seek asylum at the border?

will you wait

until that mother finds out—two months after being separated—

that her child has died in a rotting grey cell?

will you wait

until a Mexican father is beaten the shit out of

for coming to this country and “stealing your job,”

the one you wouldn’t work for

if your life depended on it?

will you wait

until Brooklyn Lindsey is one among many Black trans women

to be killed?

will you wait

until George kills Trayvon

after following him for looking “suspicious”

and ends up, years later, not being charged

with murder?

will you wait

until an unarmed, innocent George Floyd

is pinned to the ground, knees of a white officer to the back of a neck,

panting “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,”

for 8 minutes straight until he is murdered?

will you wait

until a 13-year-old is shot straight in the chest

by another police officer

to call for a gun reform?

will you wait

until me and my Muslim girlfriends

are followed by a group of high schoolers

who harass and scream “terrorists” at us?

will you wait until they get physical?

until they rip off my hijab?

until one of us ends up in the hospital?

or ends up dead, like Nabra Hassanen?

yes,

yes, you will wait.

you will wait until you are too late.

maybe you’ll even wait until your own

daughter, son

mother, father

aunt, uncle

sister, brother, close friend,

has been—have been—murdered.

maybe then you won’t wait anymore. 

Flowing Rivers

Your baby will wipe away your tears,

and when you reunite in heaven, you’ll see

they have made you a fountain of the purest love,

a stream that flows beneath your feet

and towards the evergreens that have bloomed,

canopied of shading light and the coolest breeze.

You’ll see they have waited for you all this time.