The Prayer
I can close my eyes and sit back if I want to,
I can lean against my friends’ shoulders and eat as they’re eating, and
drink from the bottle
being passed back and forth; I can lighten up, can’t I,
Christ, can’t I? There is another subject, in a minute
I’ll think of it. I will. And if you know it, help me.
Help me. Remind me why I’m here.
—Kim Addonizio, “Death Poem”
On Easter, after the egg-hunt, you’d eat honey-baked ham, macaroni and
cheese, and sfeha, which your father would make from scratch, by
stretching out individual pieces of dough and spreading on top the
mixture of beef, onion, and tomato that he’d been cooking on the stove,
perfuming the house with seven-spice and meat. After dinner, you’d watch
The Last Temptation of Christ or Jesus Christ Superstar or
some other movie that had “Christ” in the title and illustrated the
mythological phoenix-like death and rebirth.
Your friend has died. It feels like his death echoes in everything: the
book you’re reading, the class you’re taking, the drink you’re making.
Was it accidental? Was it suicide? Everyone asks. Does it
matter? you ask back. He had a daughter, he had a life, he was
breathing, you say. You know they don’t mean anything by it, you
know you’d probably ask the same thing if it was someone other than your
friend. You understand how they are taken by your hostility. You hope
they understand also.
A plaque hangs above the front door of your parents’ house, reading
Allah in Arabic. But your father had never practiced salat
until Teta died. You remember watching him at the funeral,
standing in front with his brothers, stumbling over the steps. It was
raining, the ground was soggy, but still he kneeled, placing his arms
and forehead on the wet grass.
Somedays I’m trying so hard to hold myself together, to keep all the
pieces of my life from falling apart,
you say to your mother.
Find that black dress she bought you. You ask your partner to zip you.
You begin to sob on the way to the funeral. You weep through the
service, though you do not pray or kneel or read or sing with the rest
of the congregation. You wonder if your friend would have liked the
service; you don’t think he would. The sobs do not relent until you are
back home. Nothing feels right. You read poetry. You read his book. You
curl in a ball and sleep.
When Teta died, you were given the chance to see her one last
time before burial. The women at the mosque had cleaned her body and
wrapped her in white cotton; only her face would be exposed. You were
twelve. You said no. You’ve regretted the decision ever since.
Robert Pinsky wrote a poem called “Dying.” Nothing to be said about
it, and everything.
You were a child when she would read to you from a bible for children.
You don’t remember many of the verses now, and you believe even less
than remember, but when you recently went to your friend’s funeral, you
surprise yourself, absent-mindedly reciting the Lord’s Prayer along with
everyone else.
Two weeks later, another wave. How could so many polls be wrong? How
could you have trusted your country? You feel betrayed. Go to sleep
worrying about your family, the ones with prominent noses and stubborn
hair; the ones whose bodies turn themselves toward Mecca. Go to sleep
worried about your career, your rights to your body, your friends’
rights to their bodies and marriages and fairness. Go to sleep, but do
not expect rest. The world is falling apart.
Griefs overlap like rivers running into one another. You cannot
differentiate them. They become one. Their weight reminds you of the
lead shield doctors made you wear as a child during x-rays.
What comfort is there to turn to? You drink your coffee, smoke some
more, visit your plants and feel soothed by the life around you: bees
vibrating the sweet almond, passionfruit above your head.
You dream about your grandfather’s body, the first dead body you ever
saw. Christians are partial to wakes and viewing of the body, but it is
not the same body. It is yellowed, the skin like old hardened plastic
that has been stained by too much sun, too many Florida summers. There
is no expression on the face; it is not peaceful, it is void. You did
not cry until you saw his dead body, immediately incensed that his wife
had done this to him, had degraded him. You better understand the Muslim
ritual, where the body is not drained of its blood, refilled with toxic
chemicals so that it can be artificially preserved for the benefit of
the family.
Go to Target for plastic bags. Walk around the aisles, trying to find
something to buy, something of solace. Shopping is so cathartic,
you remember a friend saying once. Watch the people as they shop: the
couple talking about TV prices, the young girl buying tampons, the
grandmother searching for the right birthday card. Watch them like a
kitten watches her mother, learning how to survive, get caught staring
at them blankly. You will look away quickly, but you will not feel
embarrassed.
You don’t remember the last time you saw your grandfather, don’t
remember if it was cold or what it was that finally killed him, you only
remember the relief that swept over you when your mother told you.
Call your father. You’re crying by the time he answers, though you
didn’t mean to. Let the tears flow regardless. Like any good father, he
lies to comfort you. He promises you nothing will change. The change
of changes, closer or further away…
People try to cheer you. We’re a resilient country, we’ve gone
through worse. Can you help that it only makes you more frustrated?
You feel so angry lately. You feel so much lately. Everything is so loud
and fast.
You dream about Chris twice. The first time, you are on the phone with
someone you do not know, talking about him, saying all the same things
you’ve said. The next night, you see his face. That’s all you can
remember the next morning as you sit in your friend’s living room,
telling her about the dream: just his face, right here in front of
mine.
The last time you saw Teta, EMTs were pounding her chest while
she lay on the cold terrazzo floor, hijab disheveled, breasts exposed.
You do not remember ever dreaming about her.
Today is a day when you want to feel all depths of sadness, but you
can’t. Today is a day when you need to push through the pain because
there are words to read, words to write. There are deadlines. Hold on
just until you can fall apart. The holding-on, the waiting is the worst
part.
Call your mother for comfort, and find that her words are slurred today.
Get into an argument. Tell her you love her, you’ll call tomorrow. The
next day, you’ll call, hoping she doesn’t answer.
The sun sets earlier now, and somehow this soothes you. Daylight creates
pressure to feel good, to take off your sunglasses, smile at people, and
chat in the elevator. It’s energy you don’t have.
The last time you saw Chris was two nights before he’d died. He was at
your apartment, smoking cigarettes on your balcony. He was alive, alive,
alive.
The girl at Whole Foods asks how you feel about the election results.
She is younger than you, cute in the way that all twenty year olds are
cute, with her natural hair a big round afro and bright pink nail-polish
shining on the tips of her fingers. Tell her the truth, how you haven’t
slept, haven’t eaten and couldn’t think of anything to eat except maybe
a banana, which is why you’re here. She is surprised. Really? Just
over the election? You want to apologize for what you know is to
come, but instead, you say Yeah, just over the election.