Noor Mohammad

“Mami wanted me to be a lady:
sit up straight, cross my ankles,

let men protect me.
Papi wanted me to be a leader.

To think quick & strike hard,
to speak rarely, but when I did,

to always be heard. Me?
Playing chess taught me a queen is both:

deadly & graceful, poised & ruthless.
Quiet & cunning. A queen

offers her hand to be kissed,

& can form it into a fist
while smiling the whole damn time.

But what happens when those principles
only apply in a game? & in the real world,

I am not treated as a lady or a queen,
as a defender or opponent

but as a girl so many want to strike off the board.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, Clap When You Land

“What were you before you met me?"
"I think I was drowning"
"And what are you now?"
"Water”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“بعض الناس يخبؤون التعاسة بنفس الطريقة التي يخبئ الآخرون بها الحب ، بخصوصيّةٍ وحدّة ، ودون الإستعانة بأي أحد على مايعصف بهم.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“The slow overture of rain,
each drop breaking
without breaking into
the next, describes
the unrelenting, syncopated
mind. Not unlike
the hummingbirds
imagining their wings
to be their heart, and swallows
believing the horizon
to be a line they lift
and drop.

—Jorie Graham, from “Mind,” Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts. (Princeton University Press; First Edition edition June 21, 1980)”
― Jorie Graham, Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts