I feel lonely, not going to lie. Sometimes, I feel like I am too deep for everyone else around me, and it’s exhausting skimming the surface. I’d like to go to a jam session outside a coffee shop at night, where poets take the stage under the sky and an up-turned plastic bucket makes an adequate seat out in the parking lot.

I’m seeking people who miss the 80s because yeah—I am that old. But, I think the good old days could still be tomorrow if I find the right flock.

I meant this to be a blog, but it is starting to feel more poetry.

So, I’ll end on this note,

if you’re one of my birds,

Fly

The ideas are bustling with rhythm 

I can feel a mad flow rushing within me

And the beat is a cacophony of visions 

Visionary 

I am visionary 

Innovative and indecisive because 

Who knows where to start 

All of this music in me 

My lungs bursting to sing

All this creativity brewing

My body swollen with ideas 

It’s like a festival playing in me

My arms are tingling 

I feel a stress to bear this burden

A need to birth all of everything at once

I feel music in me

I am pounding with notions

Perpetual movement within my head

it’s hung in the sky like a still picture—bright luminescent light—flat against the pale blue, above a steady line of mountain tops—red brown, black—shadows, huge, looming, enormous, expansive, widening—they go everywhere

It's a beautiful morning

I recall the times that I've looked at the moon in astonishment, driving back from California towards Vegas, my head hanging out the window, trying to snap a picture of the moon as she sat still and humongous like a big yellow orb resting in the mountains

Clingy desire I want to kick you in the face and shake you off my leg, but you are like oily tar, sticky and impossible

Ubiquitous desire I want to suffocate myself to end the flow of you through my lungs

I can’t breathe without your presence and I am suffocating on your existence, drowning in your endless pour

am I complicit

in this blatant genocide

if I hear but don’t listen have I injured the victim

calling out for help

am I just as much a transgressor

watching from my distance

as the birds over-watching

Kids shouldn’t read this: 

there is going to be foul language 

Because

No matter how one sugar coats it,

euphemisms aside,

people are fucking stupid

It’s been true historically—

dating back all the way to Adam and Eve

The first idiots of humanity

(God forgive me)

But, it’s true

And, ever since them, mankind has been doing stupid things and being overall pretty idiotic

Evidence of this is literally

 everywhere 

Someone is smoking a cigarette right now

Another person is speeding

Two people are fighting 

And, a whole crowd of people is paying to see them

Hoping for blood at the hockey game

Logging into Netflix for some good old fashioned entertainment 

Instead of reading a book

Themes from the past remain relevant 

For thousands of years 

Because people are habitually 

and predictably stupid

Making the same stupid mistakes over and over again

And then

Writing books, plays, songs, and musicals about the tragic condition of humanity 

Throughout the ages

God has ordained it

Man is lost

This is a warning to us both—

I’ve been warned,

so shame on me

(and, I can feel it coming)

Shame on me

Because I don’t want to stop it

It’s been there from the start

A spark—

even if just an ember

Enough that it’s been allowed to

simmer and smolder

Your smile has caught my mind

Your intellect has seduced me

I’ve already fallen somewhere—

Away from just friends

Looking forward to the events

To looking forward to you

my ideas pop off and dazzle the crowds,

before fizzling out, slowly falling down 

out of sight; and, then, 

my ideas are exploding again; 

there are “oohs” and “aahs,” 

and

even some “wows” 

before the crowds 

settle back down

 into wondering

 if that’s all.

—Zarinah Muhammad 2020

and up past midnight

looking out the window

towards your past,

you’re feeling a little

nostalgic and a 

little sad.

If you’re like me,

you can still sharply 

remember

the freshly cut green grass

the sharpness of its 

edges,

and being a kid

running and rolling

through it.

If you’re like me,

you jumped from ledges

outside the museum

made of stone.

You called the trees

your clubhouse,

the beach your home.

If you’re like me,

you grew up happy,

for the most part,

or as much as anyone should.

You were loved,

and you knew goodness.

You knew God, and

you knew prayer.

If you’re like me,

you did some bad things,

things you never 

should have done.

But, you learned to do

the right thing,

and you tried to stay

consistent.

But, if you’re like me,

you know it’s impossible

to be infallible 

when you’re as flawed

as I am-

if you’re like me.

I'll catch them.

Ain't no room for sadness here.

Play me your worries;

I'll tune them.

Ain't no room for sadness here.

We have fires in this moment, but we could be stone cold.

We've come to a hard chapter, but your story's not yet told

Dance in the sunlight;

I'll sway with you.

Ain't no room for sadness here

Linger on the dance floor;

I'll stay too.

Ain't no room for sadness here

© Zarinah Muhammad 2020

I can feel your blues

I hear you singing

And, I sing back, I am America too

I am the hijabi sister

The woman they can’t place

The one assumed from another land

The one whose black is misplaced

Today, I eat in their cafes

And, they wonder if they should worry

They ask me, “Where are you from?”

But, they’ve assumed my story

I too am America,

But, they don’t see it.

Hey Whitman,

I am singing back to you

Where is there room for me

In the red, white, blue

The KKK is back again

Openly targeting 

based on color of skin

They are America too

So, I can’t help, but to sing

This caged bird that I be

in America’s chorus 

America is me

I too am America

America is singing with me

I too am America

But, America 

has yet to be

You may have made a hundred deals

but they fade into blue

People will forget it too

So make your moments real

Get up in your feels

Let your life be the best reel

Show them have you feel

Take the pill

It's called living life

Maya said it;

Have you read it:

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Maya told it real.

Hear it like you heard Maya Angelou

She said people remember how you made them feel, not what you do