Naveed A. Khan

I’m afraid I’ll be stuck in one place for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t mind it so much if it’s one place that I truly love, but I’m afraid it might not be. 

So I tell her,  in the simplest  way possible, that I most prefer that she had  bigger thighs-  stronger, thicker, and more bountiful

Your eyes are curious, not because they hold curiosity but because they propel me further into some uncertain abyss.

I keep a beard because if I was white, no one would question it or treat it or me otherwise. But because I’m brown, everyone suddenly pays attention.

I wanted to smile, perhaps even wave. Something. Anything.

Transcendent and unconditional. i.e. Lines, walls, and barricades – they all come crashing. Borders blur into non-existence. Some see this as myth but we have committed to prove it to be more legend.

It was such a small but powerful word -us. That meant you and I and everything else that would come with it. The good, the bad, the whatever. It was us. We were us.

Do not be afraid to get your heart broken. Do it again, and again, and again, if need be. Let it inspire you in new and dangerous ways. 

But she happened. It was hard to miss. Sometimes, when I look at her, there doesn’t seem to be enough air around me.

“I refuse to be treated like a second class citizen. I have to live here for the rest of my life.”

I’d set precedents, treat mistakes as lessons, and that’s a testament of identifying the struggles and striving to only lessen them.

I’m afraid of forever being a shadow of who I think I should be.