Fatimah Asghar

On February 7, 1979, Pluto crossed over Neptune’s orbit and became the eighth planet from the sun for twenty years. A study in 1988 determined that Pluto’s path of orbit could never be accurately predicted. Labeled as “chaotic,” Pluto was later discredited from planet status in 2006. Today, I broke your solar system. Oops. My bad. Your graph said I was supposed to make a nice little loop around the sun. Naw. I chaos like a motherfucker. Ain’t no one can chart me. All the other planets, they think I’m annoying. They think I’m an escaped moon, running free. Fuck your moon. Fuck your solar system. Fuck your time. Your year? Your year ain’t shit but a day to me. I could spend your whole year turning the winds in my bed. Thinking about rings and how Jupiter should just pussy on up and marry me by now. Your day? That’s an asswipe. A sniffle. Your whole day is barely the start of my sunset. My name means hell, bitch. I am hell, bitch. All the cold you have yet to feel. Chaos like a motherfucker. And you tried to order me. Called me ninth. Somewhere in the mess of graphs and math and compass you tried to make me follow rules. Rules? Fuck your rules. Neptune, that bitch slow. And I deserve all the sun I can get, and all the blue-gold sky I want around me. It is February 7th, 1979 and my skin is more copper than any sky will ever be. More metal. Neptune is bitch-sobbing in my rearview, and I got my running shoes on and all this sky that’s all mine. Fuck your order. Fuck your time. I realigned the cosmos. I chaosed all the hell you have yet to feel. Now all your kids in the classrooms, they confused. All their clocks: wrong. They don’t even know what the fuck to do. They gotta memorize new songs and shit. And the other planets, I fucked their orbits. I shook the sky. Chaos like a motherfucker. It is February 7th, 1979. The sky is blue-gold: the freedom of possibility. Today, I broke your solar system. Oops. My bad.

All this tall grass has ruined my gold acrylic nails & I know something’s dead just beyond my window. I grew up with rats running my floorboards & know the smell straining from a body once caught in a trap. In the city what little I have of an ass is always out, a simple wind blow from Marilyn Monroe-ing the street. Here, in all this nature, there is nobody but me & my 5 friends for a week & I promised myself I’d be naked but the first day I found a tick clinging to my arm hair for dear life & decided no way I’m exposing my pussy to the elements. My love for nature is like my love for most things: fickle & theoretical. Too many bugs & I want a divorce. Last week, before I was here my uncle drove me from our city to the suburbs & sang “Project Chick” in the car. When we parked he asked me to take off my shoes & there we walked, silent, barefoot circling the lake, trying to not step in goose shit. He walked in front & I trailed behind both our hands clasped behind our backs. When you were my daughter, those were the happiest days of my life. I wish you would come home.

these are my people & I find them on the street & shadow through any wild all wild my people my people a dance of strangers in my blood the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind bindi a new moon on her forehead I claim her my kin & sew the star of her to my breast the toddler dangling from stroller hair a fountain of dandelion seed at the bakery I claim them too the sikh uncle at the airport who apologizes for the pat down the muslim man who abandons his car at the traffic light drops to his knees at the call of the azan & the muslim man who sips good whiskey at the start of maghrib the lone khala at the park pairing her kurta with crocs my people my people I can’t be lost when I see you my compass is brown & gold & blood my compass a muslim teenager snapback & high-tops gracing the subway platform mashallah I claim them all my country is made in my people’s image if they come for you they come for me too in the dead of winter a flock of aunties step out on the sand their dupattas turn to ocean a colony of uncles grind their palms & a thousand jasmines bell the air my people I follow you like constellations we hear the glass smashing the street & the nights opening their dark our names this country’s wood for the fire my people my people the long years we’ve survived the long years yet to come I see you map my sky the light your lantern long ahead & I follow I follow

We got sent home early & no one knew why.I think we are at war! I yelled to my sister knapsacks ringing against our backs. I copy -catted from Frances who whispered it when the teachers got silent. Can’t blame me for taking a good idea. I collect words where I find them. I’m young & no one around knows where my parents are from. A map on our wall & I circle all the places I want to be. My auntie, not-blood but could be, runs the oil through my scalp. Her fingers play the strands of my hair. The house smells like badam. My uncle, not-blood but could be, soaks them in a bowl of water. My auntie says my people might be Afghani. I draw a ship on the map. I write Afghani under its hull. I count all the oceans, blood & not-blood, all the people I could be, the whole map, my mirror. The kids at school ask me where I’m from & I have no answer. I’m a silent girl, a rig ready to blow. The towers fell two weeks ago & I can’t say blow out loud or everyone will hate me. They all make English their own, say that’s the bomb. I know that word’s not meant for me but I collect words where I find them. I practice at night, the crater it makes of my mouth. I whisper it to my sheets, bombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbomb a little symphony, so round. I look up & make sure no one heard.