before i was queer& they were holy

for so long my access to blogger has been shut down. my computer died & i were locked away from you, o my em'lys & henrys.

i return now with two prizes: a recommendation to a beautifully-written short piece from mwu!:

the other girls come in hooded, like jedi knights. this is the source of their power. usually my mom heckles hijabis, saying, excuse me but how conceited are you, to think you need to cover even your eyes, or, i’m muslim too, but i don’t have to wear a sheet around to prove it. today my mother doesn’t say anything because she knows i’ll get embarrassed and end up apologizing for her, because i used to know those girls, used to be in the youth group with them, used to watch boys with them. back then the girls would say, of ali or isa or sinan, he’s so cute, i hope my father arranges me a marriage with him. they weren’t joking, and it’s not a joke anymore, not since the iron curtain of hijab fell and i feel too guilty to laugh. it all started with just one girl, anida, who was particularly inspired by the imam who i always used to fight with about whether or not a wetsuit was Islamic attire. anyway, all the women in her family fell, and then hijab spread from girl to girl faster than an std in a whorehouse.

& the 2003 storySouth winner:

Long after the credits had begun to roll, the three of you still sat in the dark, you translating the movie’s murder mystery into Arabic. There’s nothing sadder than a fourteen year-old explaining a movie to her middle-aged parents. In America, you think, not understanding a movie is the same as being illiterate. It could break your heart if you really thought about it, so you should never think about it, you should just go to school, eat your lunch on the floor outside the library, then go into the library and spend the rest of the period reading the dictionary.

i hope you can forgive me for my absence, i repent i repent.