Tags:

like bugleweed, my unshaven hair is sprawling into sajda
after all these years, these legs i’m still hauling into sajda

when i went down on you i accidentally muttered a prayer
my back turned to stars still feels like i’m falling into sajda

i’m sorry i keep entangling broken verses in your curls
it’s just that my ancestral djinn keeps dislodging into sajda

why does baba gasp when politicians dine with rapists
when his own son raped allah, while fawning into sajda?

i told allah she didn’t have to be rahman nor rahim to him
his namaaz still triggers me, she said, bawling into sajda

how long will we fight and fuck, scream uncurious for dawn?
you stretch so good, but my muscles keep snowballing into sadja

cops still shoot rainbows, death still pulses through the sky
vultures grieve at the perpetual vigil, still flocking into sajda

tell me, how should we celebrate this love when we too love
on stolen land. this settler queerness keeps stonewalling into sajda

Art by Saba Taj, Prayer is Better than Sleep. Mixed media on canvas, 2016.