ABOLITION
EVERYDAY SH!T: THE PILOT ISSUE
After “An Independent Palestine State” by Richard B. Doubleday
On January 29, 2024
no Peppa, no potty she says
while she hardens her eyes, drops
her mouth’s softness to stone grimace.
she will not go
though she must.
no Peppa, no potty when i remind
that she can watch as i do her hair,
our morning ritual, love in tender brush.
the tangles releasing to the oils in my hands
i offer her this lesson:
i support and celebrate
her ability to choose
even her own body’s work.
always I honor her right, but protest
for free life.
should i tell her about the girl
in the bombed out car, her family dead
around her. how she called for help,
the pleading of many tongues
يساعد1
ע ָזרה2
help
fleshy to its tooth breaking pit
all she received was her body’s retrieval when the bullets stopped gutting metal. how to cut the wisps of my daughter with this, a name, hind rajab, which means not only gentle deer but tender. a name, which means
respect, to awe, to fear.
gentle to awe. the feared deer.
fleshy to its tooth breaking pit
all she received was her body’s retrieval when the bullets stopped gutting metal. how to cut the wisps of my daughter with this, a name, hind rajab, which means not only gentle deer but tender. a name, which means
respect, to awe, to fear.
gentle to awe. the feared deer.
how to feed my daughter on fat and lean of new words:
atrocity and devastation and genocide
i tell her about the children
without running water
without light or food
or cupcakes
she is 3
atrocity and devastation and genocide
i tell her about the children
without running water
without light or food
or cupcakes
she is 3
what should i tell her about how the killers use
the cries of children to call the people out
to explode the bombs in their tanks
the gathering of limbs to bury wrapped in white
how one body becomes the communal body
not this
there was a picture of a little girl
in a graduation gown
behind her delicate tulips
The color of hair bows set in the silk of her hair, pastels the color hair bows should be
maybe she wanted to be a doctor
like my daughter
like the two ambulance workers who died
trying to save her
she was 5
335 bullets were fired into that car
my daughter has just learned to count to 12
no Peppa, no potty a first protest
i tell her we must stand for something
we can sit, too, for something
protest for a life
a protest is a way to help
even a child can do
we must protest for the good of people
protest to live
live out a gentle
awe
without fear
my daughter wants to be a healer
someday
but today she learns her body
can be a protest
and must
1yusaeid (Arabic for help)
2ʿezrá (Hebrew for help)
Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). She is a member or fellow of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Macondo, Obsidian Foundation, The Watering Hole. She is the author of black god mother this body, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and the chapbooks, profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She publishes across forms in visual art, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and scholarly work. She teaches at the Stonecoast MFA at the University of Southern Maine.