Once Poetry, Now Prayer — Poems by Hiba Zeinab Ashraf

My musallah bears the weight of my persecution

At Fajr, my hands pick at the frayed threads in tandem with my whispered prayers.

At Dhuhr, it collects my cobalt blue grief in a leaking jar.

My name hangs over my head like a life sentence at Asr.

By Maghrib, I cradle my mother’s duas from her lap. They smell of grief.

And by Isha’a, I make a home in my musallah trying to wash away the stench of unanswered dua’s.

The land beneath my prayer mat smells like rotten flesh at all five times.

The ground still stinks, I don’t stop bleeding blue

and my hands weigh heavy carrying the weight of empty promises.

My name, still heavy with repentance

stains the musallah blue.

My eyes bleed crimson

and my hands resemble leaking pomegranates.

The land still smells.

The stain still stands.

—— Yet Another June

June comes and goes,

taking with her the uneaten remnants of my ishq.

Three letters make up the word Ishq;

Ain, Sheen and Qaf.

Three letters, to sum up the battles won and lost,

to sum up the passion and the pain,

the refute and refuge.

Yet between the three letters my conscience

seems heavy enough to drown my qurbat.

Hands clawing, lungs crumbling,

desperately looking for a way out,

I drown,

along with my heart.

Scholars and lovers define ishq

as ‘a passionate means of love’.

Is that why mine doesn’t fall short of torment?

What else is sharper, but mohabbat?

June brings her sorrows,

pouring down as she grieves like a widow.

Her tears don’t end at the footsteps

of a church nor a mosque,

It ends at the foot of her beloved;

once poetry, now prayer.

June is the month of love and lovers

Of the mourning and the suffering.

June, she is a prayer

that is rammed between the ribs of her lover.

June is my dearest,

And who better to keep a poet in love, company?

Where I'm From

Where I’m from, lovers don’t hold hands

or kiss,

they sleep in separate beds and barter looks of longing.

Grief takes the place of love when she leaves.

Putting lovers to sleep, with her hands

wrung tight around them.

Holding them, rooting them in place

until they sprout deep crimson hibiscus flowers

that smell like heartbreak.

Here, there are more grievers than there are poets. More burning hearts than beating.

Here, there are more tombstones than homes.

Where I’m from, falling is easy

when you’ve been living in the trenches for too long.

Leaving is easy when you’ve never been home.

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About the Poet:

Hiba Zeinab Ashraf is a poet and writer with a background in Creative Writing and Journalism. Her work delves into themes of identity, nostalgia, and grief whic is deeply influenced by her experience as an Indian Muslim woman.  She loves cinema, the sea and the quiet.