by Elizabeth Shanaz
The ones tired of performing / The ones with tattoos and piercings and cuss words’ fragrance on their tongues / The ones who are nearly hafiz / The ones who still have to look up the steps for namaz / The ones sick and tired of that masjid Attitude Aunty / The ones with more ex-lovers than fingers, maybe toes, too / The ones who cover / The ones who will never cover / The ones who crawl back under the shimmer of a roja moon / The ones still contemplating return / The ones prone to forgetfulness / The ones with implants and transplants and zabiba / The ones the Saudis won’t allow their people to marry / The ones who need YouTube to read them the Qur’an / The ones with screenshots of du’as saved on their phone / The ones dying to be themselves, exactly how Allah made them / The ones with Qur’ans collecting dust / The ones seeking a merciful creator in a sea of lectures obsessed with wrath / The ones who are seeking / The ones who sing for worship / The ones who dance for worship / The ones who know that art is worship
Elizabeth Shanaz is a New York based writer. Her work has been featured in Playboy, Human/Kind, Defunkt, PREE Lit, Zhagaram Literary, BRAWL Literary, Wildscape Literary Journal, Blood + Honey Literary Magazine, Soul Forte, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Literary Times, and the Blue Minaret, among other journals and magazines. She studied writing and literature at CUNY City College before earning her law degree from NYU School of Law. She was nominated three times for the Best of the Net Anthology in the category of Poetry.
January House Literary Journal 
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