Table of Contents
I Explode in Quiet 1
Welcome to My Body: A War Memorial 3
There are More Guns in America than People 5
For Those Who Did Not Make It to EID 6
Palm Readings 8
Different is Sometimes Synonymous with Lonely 9
In the Interest of Not Getting Too Political, Let Me Just Say This: 10
For the Man Who Colonized My Body 12
Handling House Fires 15
The Language of Promises 16
There is Nothing Elegant about the Way a Kingdom Burns 17
Home / Sickness 19
The First Time I Was Told to Watch Something Die 20
Lahore Blast 21
A Better Life 23
I Am No Longer in the Business of Turning Rage into Silence 25
Backpacks and Bombings 26
Who I'm allowed to Be 27
Hair like the Sun 28
My Country was the First to Fuck Me 29
Learning to Love Bomb-Threat Bodies 30
Henna 33
On Being a Bandage 34
On Not Knowing How to Believe in God 35
An Apology 36
Confessions to My Mother 38
The Composition of Bones 40
Letter to My Mother's Wedding Photo 42
Holy Lands 43
A Preface to My Thoughts 45
Pangaea 46
If There's One Thing I've Learned, It's That Prayer Is Not Transactional 48
Loving You Like My Homeland 49
The Funny Thing about Trauma Is 51
On Translating Him 52
Love is Blind 54
I Guess It's My Fault for Opening the Door 55
Loving Again in the Aftermath 56
On Drowning 57
I Keep Remembering New Things 58
I'll Be Writing about You Forever 59
This Dyslexic Love 60
Gaslightings and Exorcisms 62
The Anatomy of Haunting 63
I Guess This Is Me Being Vulnerable 66
I Wrote a Book about Becoming Whole and Tonight, I'm the Last Bottle of Alcohol in the Fridge 68
Stop Looking for Things to Go Wrong 70
How to be Loved by Him 71
The Universe is Telling Me I'm Great, But My Depression is Telling Me Otherwise 72
How Do You Love a Dead Girl? 73
Explaining My Depression to My Lover 74
Prozac Has Numbed Me to Grief 76
Depression Waves 77
A Reading of My Body 78
Hookup 80
On Learning to Love a Shipwreck 81
Lately I've been Stagnant 83
Multitudes 84
I'm Sorry That I Figured You Out 87
A Portrait as the Flowers on a Grave 89
The Message I'll Never Leave You 90
Isorry I've been Ghosting Lately! 92
I Don't Think My Father Remembers This But 93
Trauma is Forever 94
[Writer's Block] 95
Watching the Full Moon from the Balcony 96
Flashbacks 97
When Love All But Heals 98
Catching Up 99
My Body Is Anything But Mine 100
How to Lose Yourself 101
Saying Goodbye 102
I Am Still Writing About You 103
A Thank-You Note to My Killer 104
On Grieving 105
"What Is Grief, If Not Love Persevering?" 106
How Does One Bury a Killer? 107
This Is How the Light Gets In 108
On Learning to Become 109
Learning to be Whole 110
What It Means to be Earth 111
Open Letter to America 112
Allow Me to Introduce Myself 113
An Ode to New Beginnings 115
Acknowledgements 117
