Hadiyyah Kuma
Part of the "What does being Muslim Indo-Caribbean mean to you?" Series
Praying
God as presented in the mass of an airplane
God as in a blank apartment, open windows
Blank 8x11 paper, no wrinkles
No grids or silly blue lines
Nothing separated
God as in imminent death, risk of exposure,
Precautions, liabilities, fines for touching other people
God as longing still to be touched
As pretending there is a body in your bed the size of you
God as in waiting for shuffling in the hallway to signal a homecoming
God as home
God as the absence of losing
God as absentminded thudding
Various neighbours coming back from sad places
Dark places
Glowing places
Cubicles, concerts, bars
God as waiting still
As grandma’s soft oh Allah as she rises from the couch
God as Oh Allah
Oh Allah as pressing like on a photo of my cousin in the meantime
His boy body in a mesh crop-top
Oh Allah as a family secret, as a social one, as a private Instagram account
God as closing the goddamn app as a door heaves open
God as dark mode, as bed
As the dark project of fading laughter
As Allah’s mercy
As the sunlight that changes the face of the enterer as she enters
The gardener as they garden
The band as they endeavor to awe
The prayer as she prays
The humans as they human as they bend
My tension with God is heightened in various situations. There are times when I am afraid of consequences, or afraid of others. Much of being young is about keeping secrets. This poem comes to the realization that these secrets are not sin, and Allah is not without mercy.
Hadiyyah Kuma is a 20-year-old Indo-Guyanese writer and sociology student from Toronto. Her work seeks to examine rest and pleasure under capitalism, gentrification, platonic intimacy, and Anxiety. Her poems, essays, and fiction have been published in places like The Rumpus, Yes Poetry, The Hart House Review, and GUTS magazine. Her debut chapbook, ‘tired, but not spectacularly,’ was released in 2019 by the Soapbox Press.
The views in this article reflect the lived experiences and positionality of this author based on the intersections of what being both Muslim and Indo-Caribbean means to them.