Shahid, a guard says

when we reach a giant room

with a bunch of blue doors

The doors have slots in the middle

like for hands and food trays

There’s also a glass window

big enough for a face to look out or look in

This is your cell

he says, pointing to one of the doors

This is your cell number

Remember it like your life

depends on it

So I try to forget everything

as soon as I step into

this cell

and the metal door slams shut

I want to be a blank canvas now

It’s not the blank walls

that make me remember

where I am and what I did

It’s not the metal door

or the narrow platform

that extends out from the wall

with its thin mattress

like padding in sneakers

or the silver toilet that’s attached

to a small sink

like I’m supposed to wash

my face where I shit

(And I remember Umi always saying

don’t eat where you shit)

or the row of hooks instead of a closet

like my new drip

is ten versions of this orange jumpsuit

It’s the loud quiet

It’s the voices that I don’t recognize

It’s the random screams and shouts

It’s that buzzing followed by locking metal

over and over and over again

like each time those doors close

I sink deeper and deeper into hell

I feel it in my stomach now

the stone that was in my throat

the brick that was on my chest

The mountain in my throat

the building on my chest

are now an entire country and city

in my stomach

A heavy, crowded, broken place

right there in the middle of me

So I sit on that thin mattress

and hold my head in hand

I listen to my breath

the only thing I can trust right now

I listen to my heart

And it’s the memories that stay with me

hours after seeing my family

Their faces are still there

behind my eyelids

Their voices speak to me

inside my head

And home calls my name, too

Amal

I don’t forget the sound of the city

cars honking, sirens blaring

the homies on the block talking shit

music blasting

Home has a bass, a rhythm, a groove

so it was always easy

to rhyme to it, to sing to it, to dance to it

to draw to it, to paint to it

Here, there’s no music

the silence and the closing of metal doors

and that buzzer like at the end of

a quarter in a basketball game

An alarm telling us that the game is over

again and againover and over