Habibullah – a poem by Jannah Yusuf Al-Jamil

habibullah 

What do you think we're made of? one of us asks
to the other -- all voices blend together in the
end, no use trying to distinguish them. The point
is that one of us asked. I think it was you. There's
a problem with that, but I will avoid it. I always do.

Whoever asked is waiting. I think it was you, but
it easily could've been me. I'm always waiting: lingering
on the edge of existence and wonder, dressing up as
some beloved of God, habibullah, waiting. That's
hypocrite behavior, the straight-to-hell kind. Irony is funny.
Did you know that I am still waiting? I always am. Even if
a question was never posed in the first place. But the
query is repeated:

What do you think we're made of? and it must be
you because I already know the answer. But you
are me and I am you -- it's all rhetorical. Still
we wait. Forever, we are stuck in apprehension, to
become something greater, forgetting that we are
already forgotten. It's just you and me. It always was. 

Jannah Yusuf Al-Jamil is a Muslim-American writer and a co-founder of antinarrative zine (@antinarrativeZ). They enjoy stories about vigilantes (please talk to them about The Umbrella Academy or Daredevil). Find their work in Overheard, Pollux Journal, celestite poetry, and at jannahyusufaljamil.carrd.co.