The Map of Salt and Stars

by Zeyn Joukhadar

How come people only ever have one language for grief?

we’d both know it was Abu Sayeed calling because Mama’s voice would click into place, like every word she’d said in English was only a shadow of itself.

what better place to raise three girls than the land that holds their grandparents?

If I went back, would I have the big tears I should have had then, or is the sea dried up in me forever?

“stories ease the pain of living, not dying. People always think dying is going to hurt. But it does not. It’s living that hurts us.”

Their sounds without words hum in everything, an energy without a language.