No One Names Their Daughter Khadija & Other Poems
No One Names Their Daughter “Khadija”
(Inspired by Warsan Shire)
Who named you “Khadija?”
When Jason tried to spell out your name,
he choked on the first letter
and could only finish the rest with backslaps.
Mustafa was too scared.
Said your name was a swarm of drones.
Said he could hear entire cities bursting miles away.
Rohan used to call you Jennifer,
but when he tasted war on the rim of your mouth,
your name was strapped to his tongue like a siren.
Someone should’ve told you, Khadija,
your name is the barrel of a gun,
your mouth the muzzle of a firearm.
Someone should’ve warned you,
your face is powdered with rouge and shrapnel,
your teeth smudged with lipstick and carrion.
When a man curls his fingers around your heart,
he always has his index on the trigger —
Men come for love.
You give them war.
Jason couldn’t go past your collarbone.
Said the freckles on the nape of your neck
were a gunpowder trail.
Said your skin was scabbed with bombed cities,
littered with too much history.
Mustafa came with a jar of Vaseline,
but couldn’t bring himself to grease
the rubble between your legs.
Said there were red banners lifted to your chest,
calling men for riot.
Rohan held a cigar twice the size of his palm
and tapped it between your breasts.
He couldn’t tell then which was ash,
which was skin.
Someone should’ve told you this,
no one names their daughter “Khadija”
unless in their dictionary,
“Khadija” is just another word for “shame.”
But you tried to please, didn’t you?
Gave yourself a softer name,
speckled your neck with pressed peonies and confetti.
You tried to change, didn’t you?
Let your heart fall without a safety-net,
smoked it over burning Palo Santo.
You are a hiding-place now for runaway souls,
your chest an asylum for hoarders of home,
your name a white flag waving silently —
You give men love.
They come with war.
Black Salt
Dear Suad,
I know what happened.
I know someone called you ugly today.
I know you spent hours unbraiding history from your plaits,
plucking anger from your skin.
I know you spent days decanting your heart in Mason jars
because your ribcage wasn’t large enough for your heartbeat.
“Something is wrong with your daughter,”
I told your mother,
“She has enough black on her skin
to make a revolution out of her.
She has so much history in her hair
no bleach can wipe it off.
Her bones are marinated in the ocean.
Her heart is seasoned with sea-salt.
What love can soften that kind of thickness?
You are her mother. How can you not notice?
Have you not taught her to wear her black proudly,
to sprinkle her skin with salt grains,
to braid her hair thicker than her people’s love?”
But that was a long time ago.
Suad, you are not the same combination of black meets ugly.
You will not be the same combination of black meets ugly.
The last time I saw you,
you had bullets tucked between your teeth,
flags flapping from each breast,
bayonets clipped to your braids.
“I have never seen so much black
and so much proud on a single woman,”
I told your mother,
“Your daughter carries herself like a revolution,
loves like a revolution,
ages like a revolution,
the years swarming across her forehead
like angry rioters.
God, doesn’t she wear rage well!
God, doesn’t she waltz with grace
to the thud of heartbreak!
Bless the girl who sings karaoke
to the sound of her own breaking!
Bless the girl who sleeps to the lullaby
of her own wanting!
Bless the girl who keeps falling in love
with everything she has survived!
Suad, do not be afraid to make canning jars
out of your skin and store up the world inside.
Do not be afraid to bottle the ocean in your heart.
Saline water has never tasted
sweeter,
softer,
lighter
to the mouths of men.
Waiting for His Rain
(Inspired by Sarah Kay)
Aisha, you are too reckless,
frightening in the way
you let smoking men
into your straw heart.
Your arms are stretched far too high.
Your mouth is far too open.
And men do not always come as rain,
nor do women as burning houses.
Remember Aisha,
women do not always come dressed
as first-aid kits
nor do men as third-degree burns.
Aisha, there is, in you,
fire enough to burn yourself,
water enough to put the fire out.
Remember,
it is easy to confuse
floods with rainwater
when one is thirsty.
“But Samir dug for old coins
and soda lids
inside my mouth
and it did not feel like drowning.
Anwar greased my heart
with coconut oil
and it did not feel like drowning.
Hadi lived for two months straight
under my jersey shirt
and it did not feel like drowning.”
Aisha, no love could ever fit
the size of your wanting.
But remember,
no matter how many times
love comes close to a shipwreck,
the heart will always refuse
to take swimming lessons.
Hajer Requiq is an emerging female poet from Tunisia, who holds a master’s degree in English Literature from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Sfax. She was twice picked as a semi-finalist in the Button Poetry Chapbook Contest for the years 2022 and 2023. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Northern New England Review, Blue Earth Review, and Tint Journal, among others. As well as writing in English, Hajer also writes Arabic poetry, which has been featured in Iraq Palm, Al Oma Al Thaqafia, Uruk Newspaper, and elsewhere. You can read her work at www.facebook.com/Hajer.Rq.
