The Mind Block
- There are parts of me I have not buried because everything you bury comes out alive, eventually.
- There are words I’ve read that open something within me. Words that turn my mouth into a circle. Words.
And my lips become a triangle gape. - I am writing now because I shouldn’t be writing. I refuse to bleed and become a performance.
- I walk in deep greens and wet soil and call it growth.
- I sit in lazy afternoons against white walls. Watch the sun tickle my skin and call it warmth.
- I scribble in notebooks and in my mind with headphones on and sink into deep sounds and forget my
name. - I don’t think of you or the loss or egos. I don’t think of you at all.
- I know nothing, or no one, except that today will end, work will end and I will come home to my mother
after today’s walk and I pray and thank God and walk in another invisible line. - There are parts of me I have not buried because I wear everything on my body. Once, I looked into the
mirror and lost my face.
The Dissociative American Dream
when i came to america
i stood on the perfect sidewalk
and lifted my head to the sky
so blue, so blue, so blue
a mirage, i tell myself it’s a mirage
i tell Mama this isn’t the same sky
when i came to america
i stared at the neighbor’s house
pasted on carpeted grass
each house is a dollhouse with no one inside.
“We can’t plant lemon trees here, Khalto
The contractor chooses the plants.”
when someone asks me about when i came to america
i tell them that i climbed into a painting
and was the only thing that breathes
Lina Abdul-Samad is a Palestinian-American public health research assistant. Her work has appeared in This Week in Palestine and MuslimGirl among others. When she’s not daydreaming, she is writing in a notebook or on her blog: Lina’s Thoughts and Words.
