Negotiating Salvation

I, too, am negotiating my own salvation

—Nome Patrick Emeka

If you had stayed through the night,

you could have seen it too:

the songs of worship sitting in the dark

corners of my body

like the music before the stick strikes

the drum. In my prayer,

I asked God to make me glorious.

I do not deserve this ache.

This is not about pretense. I do not

want to see ruins

Where the men see ruins. I am meant to

see my misery as gardens.

At the mosque, I count through the

hard spine of my tasbih.

See how calloused my hand is becoming.

I made nafilah

& ask God to grow flowers on every

grieving part of my flesh.

Yet, the ache stays alive in my bones.

Maybe, it is the same for the

boy beside me. The forest of worship

growing wild in his little body.

Outside, a man preaches salvation.

There are always blessings

in the silent miracles. Like the soft ripples

of a river when a stone is thrown

into it. Lord, the small room opens in me.

There’s a wounded bird

On the windowsill of the dark room.

I hope the world will not see

the futility of flight, but the empathy

the body holds when it loses

beauty. I am sitting in the dark room,

too, lonely & waiting for

the songs in my throat. Lord, take them—

this bird, these songs,

brimming with my ache. Take this ruin.

Give me gardens.

Let what keeps me awake on night like

this be gratitude

& not the sheen edge of the blade of

my grief, of my tribulation.