Fatimah Asghar Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Home is the first grave.

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

Don't let the small things become the big things.

What to do then, when the only history you have is collage?

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

How terrible—to be an ordinary orphan. Not a superhero. Not a wizard in waiting. Not a prophet who goes to a cave. Just—ordinary. All that grief, wasted. All that fucking grief for nothing.

Old Country Buffet, where our family went on the days we saved enough money. ...Here, our family reveled in the American way of waste, manifest destinied our way through the mac & cheese...

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.

In this world we were born into nothing but everything is ours: the sidewalk, the yellow markers in the road. The rain falls through the leaves and kisses us just so. What no one will ever understand is that the world belongs to orphans, everything becomes our mother. We’re mothered by everything because we know how to look for the mothering, because we know a mother might leave us and we’ll need another mother to step in and take its place. The tree mothering its shade. The restaurant door, propped slightly open, mothering its smell of cookies to us. The blinking walk sign, holding on long enough to mother us across the street. The sun mothering Noreen, warming her skin; the sidewalk mothering Aisha’s knee, kissing it when her body hits the pavement, a love strong enough to leave a mark. The rain, mothering us faster home. The hallway birds, mothering their cages. The hamster, mothering its wheel. All the mothers in the world reach out to the motherless. And beneath me, Noreen was made to mother me, my heartbeat pounding against her back, shouting so loud that it fills my entire being, you’re held, you’re held, you’re held.

Do all survivors carry villian inside them?

The secret to knowing the secret is to speak, but we too often tell the stories of no matter and avoid the one story that does matter.

What no one will ever unerstan is that the world belongs to orphans, everything becomes our mother.

My sisters-mothers are both on their own boats, in different seats. I'm waiting at the shore for them to come back. I don't know where my boat is, or where my sea is.

I push down, the soft crack of her back ripples. She laughs and it paints the room.

Why is he still here? He has his own apartment down the street, Aisha says and I roll over, annoyed that there’s four people in a one-bedroom apartment. Annoyed that what separates us and him is a thin piece of fabric. Annoyed that our Uncle has so much space for himself and yet he still comes for ours.

I am not alone because my life is so full with people, so full with books, so full with love and ideas that I can reach out and touch. I can’t be alone when every person in my life is a galaxy, a world on a world in themselves.

My whole world brimming with thems, with the theys who touch me, with the theys who smile at me when I walk down the street, with the theys who promise to call me back and never do. I don't say much, but I fall in love with all of them.

Sometimes heaven is when I’m away from you, love. Sometimes heaven is only the two of us. I know you understand. Only petty loves want to be worshipped.