Two Poems By Isis Awad

Thinking Back, 2020 

I keep saying I want intimacy 
I want love 
but I don’t know if I am capable of either to be honest 
I just have an intense desire 
to want to be wanted 
Like I really miss that 
I still have to remind myself 
to relax and breathe a few times a day 
I still have to remind myself 
to stop clenching my jaws 
to shake myself into the present 
catch my posture slumping 
my shoulder muscles tensing 
Catch me forgetting to suck my tummy in 
Dissociate compulsively into a twirl of hair 
My hair is the longest it’s ever been 
Most days I cannot stand looking at it 
I start to regret the day I went and fetched my mirror from my storage  
unit and hung it up in my friend’s guest room that I’ve been living out of  
too long 
I hate my body 
I hate my body 
I hate my body 
But it’s also mine 

I try to think back to when 
I wanted my body so much 
When I turned myself on 
When I would take all my clothes off 
Lay naked on my back on the warm, yellowed, porcelain of my tub 
In the bathroom my siblings and I shared in Kuwait 
At the apartment I lived in until the age of 17 
When I would bend my knees close to my chest 
Shortening the distance between my hole and my center 
Position myself so that when my toes slowly turned the bathtub faucet open 
Eyes closed, it would drip thick drops right on the tip of my puckered hole 
 
How I would close my eyes 
Curl my knees even closer to my chest using the edge of the tub as leverage 
To lift my waist up and my head forward to meet my center 
As far as I could 
Feel my tailbone groan from the tub’s hard surface 
Then forget all about that and only feel my bits get hard as I finally reach its tip with my tongue 
My poor, strained tongue sticking so far out it’s cramping Hear my breath scour my compressed lungs for air 
Feel the closeness to myself 
Lick the underside of my bits and it starts to taste deliciously salty preemptively me 
Heavy, controlled drops on my hole 

I moan so quietly with each tap 
And whine my hips 
Make the water lick my bootyhole all around 
Every millimeter of my hole 
And around my hole 
And just at the very edge of my hole 
Right on my hole 
Fully connected to my hole 
Centered with my hole 
Activating every nerve ending, and pleasure beginning 
My toe slowly pushing down on the faucet tap turn that drip into drizzle 
Let it rain 
Tapping my hole making a lake 
Slithering down the Valley of Inner Thigh 
Collecting in the Reservoir of Sternum 
I push my face and my hips even closer together 
Curled up into my own chest 
Pulling my dick closer to my mouth with my hand 
Worrying I am causing permanent damage to my spine 
As my lips finally reach close enough to circle around 
And I lick the underside of its head and taste my cum about to come out from the base 

Wet with water and drool 
The smell of my own raw spit  
Then  
I cum, I cum, 
I taste the cum as it suddenly fills my mouth 
It’s warmth shocks me even though I knew it was coming  
I can’t even breathe and I want to gasp for air 
But my lips holding on to the tip of my dick won’t let me 
Struggling whether to let it out and watch the cum spurt out of my dick so close to my face 
Or keep swallowing like it’s not my own  
I decide that I want to 
I want to see a dick that just happens to be mine cumming right on my face 
All over my fucking lips 
Dripping down my chin and I try so hard not to moan 
And I hope no one at home can hear me moan 
And I swallow my sweetest cum straight from the slit 
Farm to table 
And when the waves of orgasm are done sweeping through my curled body 
I slowly unfurl my waist back down like the new growth of a fern on a timeless, humid forest floor 
And my lower back cracks 
A single loud crack 
Every single time 

Closing, 2021-2023 

My practice 
My methodology 
My politics 
My reactions 
My opinions 
My reactions 
Stem from a deep desire to unlearn and transcend 
The oppression that has seeped its way into my fibers 
As a result of circumstances and lived realities 
That were and continue to be Beyond my control 
For now 

My journey is about 
Understanding the circumstances that hold me back in this white supremacist, hetero-patriarchal society 
As my strengths 
Technicalities 
There is power in owning all the things they think about you but won’t say to your face 
If they mad, then chances are you’re doing it right 
But lead with love 
There is unique strength, and exhaustion 
In holding outsiderness and uncomfortable in-between-ness

My trans-femininity 
My HIV’s undetectability My he/she-ness 
My hair texture’s 3C-ness My brownness 
An Egyptian 
Who is African 
No, North African Just Arab 
Or Caucasian 
According to the US Census 
Whose mother always yelled at to get out of the sun  
Before their skin got too dark 
Until she couldn’t yell no more 

Whose father shouted at to go to the barber 
Every three weeks like clockwork 
Before the hair got too nappy 

Everyday 
I work to know, accept, and cherish myself and all my realities 
Specifically because of the qualities I am discriminated against for 
Which I hold deep inside 
And on the surface of my skin 
Like beauty spots 
On the face of exalted poet, Assotto Saint 
Who I learned about from Pamela Sneed 
Who taught me how to weave my words and thoughts 
And who’s book, Funeral Diva 
Showed me that I had been writing poetry my whole life 
But never knew it, because the genre never felt accessible to me 
Who taught me that poetry is not only for the aristocracy 
That it is how we and our ancestors tell our stories 
That need to be heard 
It is how Nawal El Saadawi 
Pioneering Egyptian feminist, teacher, and writer 
Scribbled her memoirs on a roll of toilet paper with a smuggled eyeliner pencil 
While locked up in a women’s prison in Egypt that could not silence her 

In FUNERAL DIVA, Pamela Sneed describes Assotto Saint Striding willfully up the church aisle 
Heels held high 
Proclaiming to the church what no one there would acknowledge 
That his friend, Donald Wood, had died a proud gay man 
Not of unknown causes, but of AIDS That image is forever branded on my soul 
Reinforcing my gait 
Affirming my cunt 

I unlearn by questioning 
By listening 
By reminding myself 
That there are no facts, but that everything is real 
That nothing is inherent 
Especially not trauma 

Lived experiences can be shared, but not translated 
Nonlinearity, fragmented memories, semi-fictional story-telling 
Dreams and nightmares 
Are all legitimate sources of history-keeping 

Thank you, melanin 
Thank you, language 
Thank you, perspective 
Thank you, cute shoes (but also fuck you) 
Thank you, forgiveness 
Thank you, HIV 
Thank you, ability to apologize and forgive 
But never forget 
Thank you, laughter 
Thank you, estrogen 
Thank you, testosterone 
Thank you, lovers 
And thank you, haters 
Thank you, Assotto Saint 
Thank you, Pamela Sneed 
Thank you, Saeed Jones 
Whose memoir as a black gay man in America, 
Taught me that my story is worth scribbling down  
How We Fight For Our Lives 
Thank you, Audre Lorde 
For reminding me that “I am not free  
while any woman is unfree 
even when her shackles 
are very different from my own” 
Healing is falling back in love with everything you were made to hate about yourself