Cloudy With A Chance of Islamophobia by F. I. Ullah
I wake up in the morning feeling like a bottomless lake
Not knowing whether my prospective moments
will fill me up
or leave me barren
with no steps left to take.
So, to avoid the heartache,
I leave myself in limbo as I lie in bed
wide awake.
I was never a glass half full or half empty kind of girl;
the vessel was shattered long ago.
I imagine myself floating
in my hopes for the future;
cutting my arms
against the sharp edges of the unknown,
praying that I don’t make a mistake.
I wrap my headscarf,
watching how my favourite shades of blue
cradle my face.
Thinking about how others want to
strangle me
with my only form of protection.
Their obsession
with my “oppression,”
as if 1.9 billion Muslims saying otherwise
didn’t leave an impression.
I push myself out the door
and step onto the lily pads;
careful not to create any ripples,
careful not to drizzle
any attention to myself.
Because with every word I’ll ever say
holds hands with the souls that portray
appearances that are similar to mine.
Society is the jury
and the media is the courtroom.
One individual motivated by
violent political ideologies
is enough to put the rest of the population on trial.
We mutter apologies
for the same individual that continues to cause
destruction in our midst.
We have not found ways
to translate our innocence
into a language
that humanity understands.
Until then, we are,
“guilty until proven
extremist.”
Racism is Canada’s native tongue,
and I feel it lick
the saltwater tears
off my face;
as I board the bus
and feel the piercing stares
cutting me open
and leaving me raw
finding nothing but my pounding heart
soaked in a downpour of
loneliness.
The weather forecast
shows a hundred percent chance
of a hate crime occurring in my location.
The air is polluted
with microaggressions
and I’ve run out of sanity
in my inhaler.
The sidewalk echoes
of the orphaned child
whose family was stolen too soon;
the men whose beards were sliced,
the Muslims shot and killed
while praying at their mosque,
the hijabi girls left to drown in rivers
with no consequences for their offenders,
the hijabi women verbally and physically assaulted,
the hijabi women denied entry to work,
the women sexualized for their modesty, yet
demanded the removal of their clothing.
The electrocution I feel
when others scream at me as they drive by.
Their words: barbed wire.
My lungs: bonfire.
My body: paralyzed from head to toe.
This bottomless lake: feeling more and more hollow.
They call me a “terrorist”
but I’m the one who is left to fear.
The shark in the ocean,
now endangered,
hunted for its fins.
My voice,
my only way of survival,
taken away;
breathing out empty air bubbles,
set ablaze
as I drown
in the only place I’ve ever known -
the only place
I’ve ever called
home.