soco / go on
throttling prayer calls until they pinch you like dry heat
ringing mandem down to the saccharine sounds
of their presence and jangled keys like a mob
echoes of “home is where the hatred is, home is filled with pain”
swell up the walls
with each step, keeping a heavy guard up
even in the bellows of our bedroom and in seeps of our casing
for a nigga who doesn’t know if concealing is too much
as the watch and the drum behind Black bodies at ancestral roots
fall to natural states of being
still and resilient
shaping pains into gospel and groove, replacing what’s just
against those who aim to silence us
home is filled with haunting song and chiming shame
soco, that is how outsiders trace you but you must go on
throttling prayer calls until they pinch you like dry heat
or protest songs that beat into you harder than a government ban
trying and trying again seems to trace me
and those who look and mark like me
who love and memorialize like me
just to make sense of each sidestep or surveillance sweeps
just to make sure we have every right to be, still
to forget any stings or hardship
we remember time like batter by the palm
ka-ka-ka-ka-ka
soco, that is how we have to keep coming back, you must go on
as the return and the nomadic foot behind each move
fall to timeless song again
lineage is filled with how I can honor
without pearl white robes or camel milk stains
but shared traces that rock between time and space
that still contain me and futures to bounce off on
even in the bellows of our bedroom and in seeps of our casing
soco, that is how we overcome as we share
moving safely and still
Sundus ‘sun’ Sheikh Hussein is a community performer, painter, poet, editor and essayist. Her body of work comprises of experiments, quirks, and hidden codes, most notably ‘This is How I Move’. She is a Somali lesbian residing in Toronto where she has shared her essays on current issues, stigma, and personhood and her form cannot be ingested without recognizing such.
