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All Over the Place

‘A week before I graduate, I round up all my femme clothes / and stuff them in the Savers plastic bag / I’d gotten them in.’

By Hazem Fahmy

In June, days after the Supreme Court lifted legal blocks on President Trump’s Muslim Ban save those with “bona fide relationships” to the United States, we asked writers to imagine creative openings and counter narratives as to what a bona fide relationship might be. Trump’s latest iteration of the travel ban was stopped by two federal judges last month. We are publishing a series of stories and poems on The Margins that create new narratives and futures in response to the Muslim Ban. The following poem is the latest in our series. Read more and follow along here.

 

 

All Over the Place

 

A week before I graduate, I round up all my femme clothes
and stuff them in the Savers plastic bag
I’d gotten them in. I hand the bag over
to my best friend, ask them to keep it
safe, like someone could steal
my old skirts. And I know it’s silly
to cry over dusty fabric; cheap clothing
I can essentially buy anywhere. Except
I can’t. I complained to my mother
that I couldn’t wait to go back
home, and I knew a part of me
was lying; afraid to say goodbye
to the white spaces that kept my body
safe” – a part of me knows
the rest of me is “safer” here,
and that’s the part
I hate, but can’t live
without. I left
my gender in America. In a week,
I will land back
in my mother’s land and relearn
to call it my own. In a week,
I will remember my gender
is not a plastic bag
in Manhattan. I will pick up
a map of Cairo, start finding
a new home for myself.

The Bona Fide Relationships Portfolio was published with support from the David Rockefeller Fund and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.