Exiles of Eden by Ladan Ali Osman

Author:Ladan Ali Osman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 2019-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

III

“Think of Me as Your Mother”

For Mohammed el Gharani, a juvenile held at Guantánamo for seven years

It’s the Ides of March and I have too much longing. Lions and gales replace speech. My mind breaks in a stone courtyard. It echoes as if played from turrets. They admit me. They put my clothes in a bin and search my skin for marks, cuts, and bruises; verify my eyes, hair, toes, and knuckles are black. They remove the string from my hoodie so I won’t make a noose of it. I’m too tired to laugh about that. They offer me rice. They say, The rice is good, and watch my face. They think they know Africans. I say nothing. They give me medicine, two kinds. I get free and yell: I’m BLACK! I’m black I’m black I’m black I’m black I’m black I’m black I’m black I’m black I’m black and I’ve never been to a wedding! After the medicine, I keep seeing my black and yelling: WHAT IS THAT WHAT IS THAT WHAT IS THAT WHAT IS THAT? They don’t answer. A woman tells me to Move it, bitch. She’s pretending a toy keyboard is a lie detector. I bump her hands and she has to start all over. After the medicine, I can see my black and it can’t stop talking. It says: I’m not a demon. I’m a ghost. They’re doing the wrong rituals on me. They took inventory of my Keds, my Dickies, my ass, but I’m still found without shoes or sheets. My chin stays bruised, and a sore in my mouth makes me remember my wisdom teeth surgery when I was seventeen and I had my first Muslim doctor, and he made a mistake and gashed my cheek. To keep from crying, he bade me to stop crying, even though I wasn’t. They’d given me cackling gas. He cooed: Everything will be ok, everything will be all right, everything will be ok, everything will be all right. I screech: I love myself! in my best Kendrick voice, spin like my feet are arabesque. They shoot me. After that medicine, I stop rapping on tabletops and go to my bed. The mattress receives me. I think of dark hair on a soft belly. The blanket hugs me. I think of my baby sister sleeping on my mother’s back. I stay in my bed all day and miss all my prayers because the bed says yes and yes. I want it to say no so its yes and yes is real. Can you rape a bed by sleeping stubborn in it, even if its springs tell you to get out? Tell my mother to bring me some grease and my pik, to hide my hot hair curler in her skirt. I already know my hair better be laid when I lie in this therapist’s face and tell her: I just got confused. They release me with three brown paper bags. All their handles break. They want me

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