Portrait with This Country
BY THREA ALMONTASER
Semifinalist for the 2019 Gregory Djanikian Scholars Program
Kiss someone. God will rat you out. He’ll deliver a dream to your mom where she learns what you’re up to, awakened from her deep slumber with prophetic visions of your sins. She’ll bust your door down in a rain of spark- spittle, fireworks, shout, this would never have happened if we hadn’t come to this unholy country. This country blamed for every fallout, failure, clash for freedom. But this could have happened back in Yemen, too. Remember: No new land can change what has been set. Your book is already written, your thread-thin soul chosen especially for you. Stay alert: You’re in a car at a redlight in Apex, NC. A white hand in the truck beside you leans over, draws a gun, points it at your window. And at school you speed-walk, picture your spinal cord shot, barbell knobs scattered on lunchroom floors, the lids of your eyes blood-scruffed, smelling like jitters, singed sulphur. You glance behind brick buildings every four seconds, hijab a lighthouse, fulgent white flash. Pretend to read signs, tie your shoe, in case you spot the gun again, dull heat in another pale hand. You’re sweat-itchy, drunk on fright, always ready to rabbit-kick away from anywhere. Then a cousin, sharp-slick whiz, hexing smile dead at nineteen in a hit-and-run in his own Florida front yard. His parent’s home filled with fresh melons, grilled kibbeh, mourners with cups of black tea crying Islamophobia, hate crime, about their place in the food chain - not just a human body, ripe, a little titled, nails gnawed, breath-starved, throbbing with panic. They’re rough husks hauling their bellies through crowds at grocery stores, in line at the bank, waiting to become another dark absence, bleeding hub, another murder bloomed lurid. All of them still plagued by the uncle in Yemen who never made it back home from the market, ten years missing. The child shot walking to school. The daughter stoned for staying out late with a stranger - yet all still agree this would never have happened. O, this country ruined our children this country is a ruin this ruin is our children this country is our country is this our ruin is this our country is this