Very early in my life, it was already too late. To claim a single thing, To taste belonging.
My father named me Zah-rah
after the wild rose bushes in Sanaa
in hopes I’d sprout thorns of defiance
embody the land that planted my ancestor’s resilience.
Yet, I settled for Sah-ruh
In the same way our feet learned to settle into foreign soil.
As my nomadic roots tangled with their uncompromising ways,
my desire to uproot grew,
to repot and reside in more nurturing fields.
I miss you more than I knew you.
At times, I am not sure that home exists,
or that it ever was.
She is all the literature I have consumed,
all the preserved sacred recipes,
and the inherited memories of my parents.
I am all too familiar with the unspoken languages,
of separation and longing,
I dream of you in both.
And when I wake,
I cling onto my mother’s lap
sinking into the fertile earth of my homeland.
I knew Somalia was the nation of poets,
when I discovered that the word “hooyo” held mother, womb and home in one embrace,
for my mother was my first sanctuary,
and my sole refuge ever since.
And in the backseat of childhood car rides
solace envelopes me anew,
as she turns towards me
mid-conversation with my father,
her gaze, bearing weight and reassurance.
I almost tell them to keep driving.
In this compact carriage, I hold all I could ever need.
But suddenly, our street emerges before me,
I’m home –
or as close to it as I’ll ever be.
Yet I’m aware that this too shall fade.
Life, a gentle exhale lasting but an hour,
a short trip around the sun,
a revolving door of kinships and stories.
We, passing wanderers in this world,
preparing for our final abode.
Hoping to be welcomed into eternal gardens,
under which rivers flow,
by the Will of our Lord.
Still, on the 123 to Ilford,
I linger longer than intended
One more stop.
To avoid confronting the stark truth of my mortality,
The long way home.
Admittedly,
and perhaps slightly embarrassingly,
in every journey
I’ve searched far and wide for a trace of my Lord’s mercy
whose love surpasses even my own mother’s.
I seek it in the gentle acts of strangers.
Today its in the patience of a bus driver
how their eyes cradle mine in the rear-view mirror
holding the universe still until I disembark
reminding me I am worth the inconvenience
But then,
I remain as I always perhaps have been,
Alone.
Migrant Writing 