3 Words, 3 Syllables

By: Hawa Adam

Why is it so hard for a man to say I love you
3 words, 3 syllables that control everything
But don’t seem to be included in your vocabulary
Is it honestly so difficult?
Do you even want to say it?
Should I even be speaking this poem?
I love you 
It is foreign, it is alien
It never seem to come to your brain
As if your brain is shut down for the day
As if your brain circuits are dysfunctional
Or do you have another in mind
Even when life creates the perfect opportunities for you, you don’t grasp them
You can’t seem to push it out of you
As if there are invisible hands holding you back from it
From happiness
Sometimes you don’t even have to mean it just say it
Because searching for meaning simply takes time
And a woman's heart can only beat to the rhythm of the clock for so long
So just grow some balls and say it
Us ladies no longer want to wait around for your lips to gain the confidence they need
We don’t want to have to play dress up to make it easier for you
We don’t want to bend over backwards, trip over heels to get through to you
We don’t want to use up our energy daily day only to be disappointed nightly
And we definitely don’t want to be the first ones to say it
Because if we say it first, it just means you couldn’t
It just feels like we stole your moment

We are the World

By: Hawa Adam, Balkisa Abdikadir, Lena Ginawi, and Kiran Waqar

♫...We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who...♫

Hawa: Are making mistakes,
Kiran: Segregation never was so visible
Balkisa: Me vs. you
Lena: Us vs. them
Hawa: Black
Balkisa: White
Lena: Arab
Kiran: Asian
Hawa: We get so caught up in the darkness of these differences that we can’t see the light of our similarities
Kiran: We turn away from the 2 eyes, 1 nose model of the human being and instead form our own images of acceptance
Lena: Humanity, unity, we detach from it all
Balkisa: We drift apart slowly, steadily like water eroding at rock

Kiran: I am Mother Asia
We have a rich history scared by the hands of white men
Who have taken a beautiful continent and tried to turn it evil with greed
British colonialism in India
Drugs in China
Assimilation nationwide
We are recovering from your attacks
But it has not ended
We still face poverty to this day
Our children are dying in the stone cold factories you created
But all you can do is make fun of the accents when you call the help line
You say you know us
That you find us exotic
You enjoy our food, culture, and movies

Good Vs. Evil

By: Kiran Waqar, Hawa Adam, and Balkisa Abdikadir

It’s a Wednesday
Not a special Wednesday or anything
Just a Wednesday
But I can’t seem to figure out what to wear
Well, let’s see I have gym so nothing too fancy
But I do have that presentation
So something a little sophisticated
Maybe even throw on some glasses to look smart
Nah- but it depends on how much time I have
What about the weather?
It’s 75 degrees Fahrenheit, Humidity 31% and wind 3 miles per hour
But with the sun comes the questions
I mean, come to think of it- the questions are almost worse than the heat
Are you hot in that?
Come on take it off
Lemme see your hair
Roll up your sleeves!
Sometimes I wonder, should I even wear it?
By it, I mean the hijab
I mean don’t you want to fit in
Be like the other girls with their long hair flowing
Or do you want to please your Lord
Do you really want to risk Jannah for a summer breeze?
Do you even wear it for the right reasons anyways?
Think about your community - you wouldn’t want to disappoint
Who are you living for, them or you?
What about God?
Just take it off!
Think about it- your insecurities would disappear
The snickers and stares would too! You’d be normal

You’re White

By: Hawa Adam and Balkisa Abdikadir

H: Hey Black girl, it’s almost like you’re white
*pause*
What does that even mean?
K: That my voice is a little too high for my identity
K: That I carry binders around instead of a bottle of hennessy
H: That my tongue articulates without an accent
K: That I can’t use slang, “you got me bent”
H: Tell me, is white a remedy to the poison of blackness
H: Is my coffee color too black and too strong
K: or do you call me white because I spend 4.99 on a vanilla bean frappuccino
Actually girl you should try the iced caramel macchiato
H: does white to you mean educated, successful, satisfaction guaranteed
H: does it mean participating in extracurriculars
You know, doing the most, getting away with stuff
Being from a good family
I have a good family
And I’m not white
I don’t want this (small pause)
to be called white.
H: Certainly not the type of white that comes with white guilt.
The white of the past.
The white of colonialism, occupation, oppression.
The white of right now.
The white privileged
I’m not privileged
Don’t call me white
*pause*
K: Do you call me white because black means broken
Let me tell you in THIS box of crayons

Gym class 2009
A young girl steps in to face her biggest fear yet
She thinks to herself
Nothing can hold her back from this kind of success
Can tell her she can’t do it
Can scare her away
Nothing, but the balance beam 
She hops on to it hoping that it would be just as easy for her
as it was for the other kids
She wishes for one single chance to prove to the rest that she could maintain balance
She crosses her fingers that no one would laugh...
Little does she know that with one foot comes the stumbling of another
That we are not all as nimble as jack
That this beam was not made for victory on her part
There never seems to be victory on her part
only obstacles
But she dodges these obstacles
NO, bullets, its matrix
Puts on costumes to make everyone comfortable
it’s white chicks
Doesn’t know how to choose one thing over the other
Twilight, eclipse
I’m sorry I didn’t mean to critique my life as a movie
but now a days I can’t separate fantasy from reality
All my energy is concentrated on what I can’t have
And what I do have is something most can't handle,
I can’t handle
I’m black,
I’m proud to be black,
scared to be black,
I’m black.
They tell me I’m beautiful in my skin,
but how far does beauty roll off your tongue.
They tell me that diversity is what completes their community,