Warning: fopen(/home/users/web/b662/ipg.themissingslatecom//wp-content/uploads/wpcf7_uploads/.htaccess): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/customer/www/journal.themissingslate.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/includes/file.php on line 247

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/customer/www/journal.themissingslate.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/includes/file.php:247) in /home/customer/www/journal.themissingslate.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/issuem/issuem-functions.php on line 260
Where I Leave You – The Missing Slate Mahtem Shiferraw">
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Literature, PoetryFebruary 23, 2017

Where I Leave You

What if God was one of us, by Amena Bandukwala. Image courtesy of the artist

Remembering this: the sadness of a straight line, or lines that mean things against my body. What I draw in my abdomen, what I learn to be the thing that separates us. The love in a circumference, holding your face in my palms when I know it is the last time I will see you, and your face suddenly becoming a map of my worlds. Many years later, I see you split: your eyes on a girl with sun kissed hair, your nose hissing in despair, the mouth on another face, the back installed on a man with fearless gaunt. I see you everywhere. And remember this: how geography can be used against you, the body you once knew, the face that was your map, a world no more. This is where things come to die, or so you were told. This is also where things come to bloom, sporadically so. This is where you will find yourself become another one. This is where you hide, or you become, depending on your will to live. This is where your dreams meet each other, and somehow collide, all on the same face. This is where, suddenly, you are no one. This is where you do not belong, and to do, you slide into someone else’s face. This, you were not told, but this, you assume to be dangerous. This is where you walk with caution: three steps forward, look to the sides. This is where you always pray, but forget what you’re praying for. This is where your mouth opens and nothing comes out. This is where you hide your children and teach them not to cry. This is where you will cry for years. This is where you learn the names of different lands, their borders marked against your body as if they all had faces. This, you know: what you must do to be, to exist, to be seen without the scars that blossom on your sides, on your wrists, on your thighs, and names that call you different things each time: alien, immigrant, refugee, and now, names you do not recognize. This is where I leave you: our faces maps no more, but lands for others to inhabit – we must be straight lines too, our bodies the borders to new fruits.

~ Mahtem Shiferraw

Mahtem Shiferraw is a poet and visual artist from Ethiopia and Eritrea. Her work has been published in various literary journals. Her poetry collection, ‘FUCHSIA’, won the Sillerman Prize for African Poets.

Tags

Amena BandukwalaMahtem ShiferrawPoems Against Borderspoetry

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleBorders
Next articleHow to Be Happy in Warsaw

You may also like

Billy Luck

To the Depths

Dearly Departed

0 comments
  Livefyre
  • Get Livefyre
  • FAQ
Sign in
+ Follow
Post comment
 
Link
Newest | Oldest

More Stories

Super Bad: The Dubious Tendencies of Judd Apatow

Guest contributor Tristan Marajh questions whether Judd Apatow can be regarded as among the smartest or most compassionate people in Hollywood.

Back to top

Greetings from the future!

 

With COVID-19 taking the world by storm and news channels everywhere hitting us with waves of negativity, we at The Missing Slate recognize the importance of creativity and the arts, especially their impact on mental health. As the world sits indoors and in some areas, cautiously starts to re-enter life, they do so knowing that things might never go completely back to “normal”. That “normal” is the watchword.

 

Over the coming weeks, long-time readers will notice things starting to change as the magazine pivots focus and direction. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. For now, we can say only that we’re coming back. That we’ve been hibernating for long enough and that the world needs some positivity and reasons to hope amidst all the doom and gloom.

 

Stay tuned!

Read previous post:
Borders

"This is not a suitcase or a fleeing day. This is not Arabic jazz or a city of lights." A...

Close