The Salt of My Womb Water
All my friendships are love letters and only you forgive me.
It is dusk and a woman sits by the sea. As the ocean sprays a salt wet breeze across the quiet town, the heavy sun slips across the sky. The lanterns lining cobblestone streets flicker and hum to life. The laughter of wayward children begins to quiet. When the ripe moon is unforgiving in the clouds, your mother finally makes her way home.
Cross-legged on an Anatolian rug, your mother sections her hair as she begins to braid and oil her curls. Her belly is swollen. She hums with pride at the idea of you thinking like her and looking like your father. Your father is beautiful. She entertains herself like this for a little while, her full lips a secret smirk only for the two of you, before finally deciding to speak aloud as the village mothers encourage.
Your mother slips a hand under her wool shawl, pressing lithe fingers against the warm, taut skin of her belly, and sighs. There is no fear in her heart, only a godliness glowing through cracks in her chest, a gold leaf song only women know.
I am seven months with child. I can feel you kicking into my kidney, thank you, but most of all, I can feel the gold in your nerves. I can feel the dust of man swirling in me and bringing me you, the greatest gift I could ever foresee. Some nights I dream of you, a woman standing tall above cowardly men, both generous and honest to children and the elderly, but most of all, to yourself. The visions throb, and I taste the salt of my womb water. You are the last of our line. And you are the greatest.
You may risk being burned at the stake, my darling, but you will live.
Oh, how you will live.
The sand is gritty and river soft under our feet as we walk across the shore, swinging our sandals with painted hands in the cool night breeze. The summer wind whips around our veils and you let it slip away, moonlight kissing your curls. You glance at me askance, eyes dancing, and a thrill goes through me. My whole life is yours. It is all I have and still, it is not enough.
This world is not godly enough for you.
The sky does not belong to us, you told me once. It never has, for women like us. The untouched but still sullied, the virgin tainted. I think of the way I want you to touch me and the angels take note. My mouth is bloody with a visceral hunger and we know I am temptation in a woman. All my friendships are love letters and only you forgive me. Only I know how to make me come undone; is this a sin? The strength of a girl who finds fulfillment in her own touch, her own fingers, her own lust.
The ocean does not belong to us, you whisper tonight. It calls and sings a siren song and you are always listening. I taste the salt and know my mother as a girl. My love, beside me, walks into a room, soaking of the Indian, and all the men look up.
…you asked me if it’s in the nature of all women to be cursed. To be driven mad, to weep and feel as if death is upon them. Some women, you tell me, are doomed to live deeply.
Your skin is burnt honey and your mouth makes me want to cry. You are a firm and honest woman. My palms are lined, cracked and knowing, but they could have never seen you coming. God, what a sweet thing you are. The day we met, the stitches around your mouth came loose, and you looked at me like a wild woman. I knew the blood that dripped from your thighs too well. Some days, you wash my feet in the seafoam, and my fingers dig into the wet earth as I choke back a sob. What to do with a love like this.
The women in your family are cursed. Your aunt drowned when she was seventeen. Your mother fell ill and passed before her time. Your sister slit her wrists to stop the dreams.
On a heady night, as we lay across a meadow of wildflowers, your lithe fingers idly drawing circles on my forearm, you asked me if it’s in the nature of all women to be cursed. To be driven mad, to weep and feel as if death is upon them. Some women, you tell me, are doomed to live deeply. There are some sins the ocean can’t wash away.
The dreams come to you now.
The thing about prophetic visions is that they never seem prophetic until they come true. In the beginning, you try to shake off the intense dreams, swearing off that last cup of chai before bed, sure it’s your overactive imagination, but in your heart, darling, you have always known the fates have had other plans for you.
They are both a burden and a gift. My grandmother, a bitter, gnarled fortune-teller, cast out of her clan as a girl, tells you untold riches await the last of your descendants. The ancient blood that thrums in your veins, she says, has resulted in the birth of only girl children. A beam to some. An eclipse to others.
Come back to me, darling, you say softly, teasing. You know I know you know when the waves drag me under, and you hold me until I can find my footing once more. As the waves kiss the shore, we sit and collapse into each other, our arms nestled tightly and thighs touching. I rest my head on your shoulder, and you press smiling lips to my temple.
Are the dreams coming again? I ask.
Yes, you are trying to say, but suddenly there is a mountain in your throat and your jasmine eyes are too bright. Instead, you nod, and my eyes narrow as you lick your lips, avoiding my gaze.
What does your grandmother say?
She says not to give life to bad dreams, you mutter. She scolds me and says to read fatiha.
Your grandmother is a woman who trusts what only what she knows, darling. Tell me what you see.
The ocean is still, but the salty breeze of the tide is relentless. Underneath, I can smell your perfumed hair, singing of lilacs and frankincense, and like the moon peeking behind clouds, I feel the corners of my lips perk.
You want to know what they call women like you?
Not really. You toy with a loose string dangling on the hem of my skirt, and I smack your hand. Your laugh twinkles, a bell in the night, and my chest aches, the sweetest pain.
Too bad, child. You will hear words like seer, witch, sahira. They will ask you to tell unto them their fortune, and you will, and they will throw your dreams back at you like stones. The people will condemn you.
What should I do?
Speak only the truth. This world has never been kind to women like you, my love. Why would it?
You hang your head, your black hair falling like a shroud. I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear. My hand cups your face, and my thumb strokes an elegant, scarred cheekbone. You find my eyes.
In that moment, your gaze locked on mine, the future is an endless, crashing ripple, blinding with heaven light. If there is a forever, let this be it.
You and me, sitting by the sea.
Tell your truth, I whisper, and I will always listen.
Nima Hussein is a Somali Canadian writer studying at the University of Ottawa. She is a co-founder and organizer of an internationally recognized group fighting for housing justice, and she primarily focuses on issues relating to Blackness, womanhood, and the diaspora. She is looking for beauty everywhere she goes.
