'I felt like I was disappearing' — poetry by Amirah Al Wassif

When My Arm Flew Into the Air

When my arm flew into the air,
I calmed myself by believing I must be dreaming.
Any moment now, I would wake to the sound
of the gecko that’s been living in my room
for the past four months.

I haven’t killed it.
I don’t want to.

I didn’t feel like I was flying.
I felt like I was disappearing.

You know that strange training—
when you teach your body to die,
and bit by bit,
you start to feel each part fade?

I smelled the okra stew
our ninety-year-old neighbor was cooking.
I saw a large yellow butterfly
telling a joke in Salvador Dalí’s ear.

He was trapped inside a painting
hanging across from the neighbors’ window.
I saw him laugh.

And I thought:
He really was mad.
Or maybe I’m the mad one.

It’s not easy to watch your arm
lift off into the air.
Not easy to ask:
Did you really detach from my body?
and hear it answer
in a voice beyond logic—
the voice of a muffled child,
as if his parents had rushed the burial,
believed he was gone too soon,
sealed the coffin,
and drove away.

When my arm flew up,
I thought:
This is delirium.
Maybe I’m dying.

Maybe I’m about to write a new poem—
one that will be rejected
by many editors
but adored by one person,
who will carve it into the bark
of a massive fig tree.

And after he walks home,
the fig tree will stir from its long sleep
and finish writing the rest of the poem.

I don’t know exactly what happened.
But I do know this:

Whatever part of you flies off
becomes braver
than it ever was
before.

---

Yesterday, I Met My Jinn Double

Yesterday, I met my jinn double.
Her fingers were shaped like forks.
She smiled at me three times—
with an upside-down mouth.

The roughness of her skin reminded me
of the last time I touched a leaf with my bare hand.

A long time ago,
back when trees could still be touched,
back when trees belonged to the earth.
Back when grape clusters were earrings—
and ropes to escape.

I knelt before her and whispered:
“How many times have they killed you?”
And I heard the echo:
“How many times have they killed me?”

I’m not her.
I don’t want to be her.
I’m free.
I flutter from flower to flower,
tasting mulberries,
playing with clay.

She points to the moon,
trying to pull it down with a rope.
I got scared.
I wet myself.

I’m not a child—
but fear makes everyone do that.
The baby next door does it.
So did my grandfather—
and he was a bank manager.

No one is bigger than fear.

She comes closer.
Her feet were shaped like hooks.
I step back.
Then again.
And again—
until I disappear.

Or wake up
from the dream.

---

Amirah Al Wassif is an award-winning poet with several publications to her name. Her poetry collection, For Those Who Don’t Know Chocolate was published in February 2019 by Poetic Justice Books & Arts, followed by her illustrated children’s book, The Cocoa Boy and Other Stories in February 2020. Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company published her most recent poetry book, How to Bury a Curious Girl in 2022. Her forthcoming poetry collection, The Rules of Blind Obedience will be released in December 2024.

Amirah’s poems have appeared in various print and online publications, including South Florida Poetry, Birmingham Arts Journal, Hawaii Review, The Meniscus, Chiron Review, The Hunger, Writers Resist, Right Now, Reckoning, New Welsh Review, Event Magazine, and many others.