I always wanted to be more than my brown skin, when you told me I was sweet like cinnamon.
HINNAH MIANI always wanted to be more than my brown skin, when you told me I was sweet like cinnamon.
HINNAH MIANI am only beautiful when my legs are open and I have forgotten my mother tongue to make room for yours.
HINNAH MIANSomewhere in these walls we’re still dancing, feeling nostalgic and much too in my head.
HINNAH MIANI like to trace the ghosts of your fingers on the back of my hand. They read- I don’t know how to hold without you.
HINNAH MIANI don’t know how to let you out without destroying us both.
HINNAH MIANI’ve got nothing left to give but I keep digging deeper.
HINNAH MIANThis foundation can only take the beating of one heart.
HINNAH MIANThe most beautiful parts of your body are those you had to grow again.
HINNAH MIANEvery beauty mark, a country to roam. Every stretch mark, a river to cross.
HINNAH MIANAnd what am I but the smallest of footnotes in the universe’s everlasting memoir?
HINNAH MIANHope lingers like a moon.
HINNAH MIANI am tired of living in a world, where I belong deeply, to anyone but myself.
HINNAH MIANRead the scars on my body like braille, for I no longer know how to tell a story that belongs deeply to me but is no longer mine.
HINNAH MIANThis country collects too many tongues, until our only language is silence.
HINNAH MIANShe has learned so much from dying only to be born again.
HINNAH MIANTear me open and rest inside me.
HINNAH MIAN