Fatimah Asghar Quotes

Every year I manage to live on this earth I collect more questions than answers.

How many poems must you write to convince yourself you have a family? Everyone leaves and you end up the stranger.

I didn't know I need to worry about them until they were gone.

when'd the west set in your bones? you survive
each winter like you were made for snow, a stranger

to each ancestor who lights your path. your parents,
dead, never taught you their language -- stranger

to everything that tries to bring you home.

Everyone wants Kashmir but no one wants Kashmiris.
Aren't I a miracle? A seed that survived the slaughter & slaughters to come.
I think I believe in freedom I just don't know where it is.
I think I believe in home, I just don't know where to look.

I'm ten//and haven't been hugged in a long time./Allah made a barrier between me & my/mom./Ullu makes a barrier between me & my aunt.//When he leaves we sit at the base of the blue/wall/& I laugh loud so Auntie A knows/I'm alive & okay & she laughs loud so I know//she hasn't left & we sit like this for hours,/hands/pressed to the felt, laughing, laughing/unable to see each other.

Mashallah I claim them all
my country is made
in my people's image
if they come for you they
come for me too...
… I see you map
my sky the light your lantern long
ahead & I follow I follow