Rashida James-Saadiya

there were some who grew tired of waiting,
filled suitcases with half their lives,
then ran towards Mars or any place far here

we watched from the windows, saw the water rise
and gather them, yet when it settled,
there was only silence

after each death, it was as if the sky wept more
perhaps on our behalf
and life as we knew it,
slowly became the color of heartache

my people made no attempt to leave,
common sense persuaded us to stay
considering no one amongst us could swim

overtime we learned a thunderstorm is also a sermon
and water, like all living things, is from God,
but it can still kill you

I am writing to tell you that the colonized world we came from could not be mended.

That we never learned to swim.
So,we flew away.

Diné women took care of our bodies, when we only wanted food,
they showed us how to be still, how to use our tongues,
to fold and carry what we’d been trained to season and swallow

At night they would whisper, “the universe is inside your body, the map for moving forward lives in your chest, there are wings in your back, find them.”

I am writing to tell you that pain is not the best teacher,
but it comes with the privilege of being alive

Time is real but also a creation of men who invade
Last night we placed their legacy on a shelf, adjacent to all false idols

We are mending the damage left behind
discovering beauty in our faces,
generational prayers in our fingertips

time is medicine now

I have come to measure each day by dreams,
and the disappearance of those who flew away before the arrival of the sun

I am slowly coming to understand inheritance
some say our ancestors could walk across the sky
that the world could never be consumed with darkness
because stars were embedded in their skin.

I am writing to tell you, the water rose above our heads, but we refused to drown.
We found our wings, and we are free in a world beyond this one

Something we could not see held everything together,
one day it snapped, and the sky wept for 300 days.

This letter is for those who cannot swim—those who will learn to fly after me.

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One day the sky began to weep and did so for 300 days