I stitch sometimes like my life is at stake,
because you’re only as loud as the things that you make.
We learn our history,
Imbued with misery,
Some thobes, a mystery.
But silence is violence
We must speak
We must do
We must be true
To ourselves
To our fight
But mostly, ourselves.
We stitch
As if, when we don’t we’ve made a mistake
Yet, our stitches embody what we can take
And what we stitch, we cannot take
With us
We leave behind our embroidery
To our children
Return to the earth
And to Allah
We tell our stories
We stitch our stories
We code our stories
We live
We are alive in our thobe
Our life is woven in each stitch
Each breath
Thread
Beads
Coins.
Please tell my story when I am
Gone.
Don’t forget I bore children in this thobe
I raised children in this thobe
A whole life lived here
Besides mine
Don’t forget us
When we are long gone
And you have the fabric of our lives
Our stories in fabric
And your microscope
And your heart
Tell my story
I lived in this thobe
My children remember their childhood
With me in this thobe.
I loved in this thobe
I still live in the memories of this thobe.
The thobe you have
Now.
Do not hush me
Do not rush me
Do your research
And then, tell them all.
How I loved.
How I lived.
In that dress.
How my life is told in that dress.
And the dress, well, she will never forget me.