Pick Up Line

I was walking down 16th street mall the other day

And I heard this guy tryna hit me with that assalamualaikum, he said it with a lip bite and er’thang.

irked by how he could just lust me and not call me by my name, I was like  “what?”

With a joint in his mouth and his faux suave he said , “I see you ma”

No. Let me tell you a little something about what you see.

I am the descendent of nomads who made love in their crops in celebrations for the fresh grown food that has bared the rain season long enough to withstand the weight of their two bodies in procreation. Nomads whose sandals left impressions on the rocks of Mount Kilimanjaro as they lead their animals to the water well of life.

The daughter of civil war victims who fled from tribe based genocide and political corruption, born of its mother colonization. And I tell civil war, you are one son of a b****. The dreams of the Somali people today are imprisoned to the dusty tents in over flooded refugee camps. Ignorance prevails as young girls are still incorrectly circumcised because she is an easy target for the devil, and can't hold on to her virginity unless she is restricted physically! Oh and when it rains hard in my motherland, compacted dirt washes away and piles of displaced skeletons resurface in conviction against the government’s attempt to conceal the truth, bodies demanding their remembrance.

Oh and check this.

I am one of five of my father’s daughters and he has instilled in me the importance of woman's rights. Emphasized the need for me to have my mind dissecting the ideas I read in books before letting my heart dance around the realization that the boy to my left is checking me out and giving the look.

I am extremely blessed because unlike some of my people back home, I don't have to mix camel milk with charcoal to have a writing utensil. Meanwhile my little sister refuses to write with anything but a mechanical pencil.

Mm the life I live

I repent to God for waking up sometimes forgetting to acknowledge the life I live

This is bigger than your pickup line, bigger than my parents’ coming to America story, even bigger than past war outcry. This is about the lucky ones not abandoning where they come from in the face of convenience, about me working to mend my motherland’s broken dignity.

***

Yo but for real, next time you see a girl in a head scarf; don't use assalamualaikum as a pickup line.

It won't get you her number.