"Untitled" by Noor Ibn Najam

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 28, 2019   Untitled   Noor Ibn Najam

No matter the rush of undertow everything else is still here. I scrawl your name at the bottom of the river I sing it and it sings me back. What I'd give for a name so keen     it whittles the valleys of my neck. I'm forever drenched in this night, and you no longer exist. The river catches the sky's black, ink meant to preserve a memory. I stay because it's easy. Here. I relive what you did to me, find myself again in the water—swollen and sullen as a bruise. I trace and retrace, graffiti every river's bank, drown into ecstasy   instead of moving on with my life. I wear what you did to me like gills, a new way to breathe. I jump into the river for days. I forget I have lungs at all.            Copyright © 2019 Noor Ibn Najam. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "As I write about the things I'm trying to heal from, I find myself wondering what it means to 'survive' trauma. Did all of me survive? I doubt it; I know some things about me are fundamentally different now. Who, then, am I working to be as I try to heal? This poem is me trying to be honest about what I find it hard to let go of, what I'm still clinging to, and why." —Noor Ibn Najam   Noor Ibn Najam is the author of Praise to Lesser Gods of Love (Glass Poetry Press, 2019). A Callaloo and Watering Hole fellow, they live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Poetry by Najam   Praise to Lesser Gods of Love (Glass Poetry Press, 2019) from "Burial Sites" by Toi Derricotte "A Pain That Is Not Private" by Lara Mimosa Montes "Quarantine" by Franny Choi January Guest Editor: TC Tolbert   Thanks to TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Tolbert about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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