If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

by Noor Naga

Now that I have gone there, the question has folded on itself, put a foot in its mouth: Why have you come here?

He cleared his throat as though fatherhood had just been declared carcinogenic and he wanted nothing to do with it: he was doing a cleanse, he was detoxing, he had given up gluten and dairy and daughters.

We rose from our graves, patted the dirt off each other, looked each other in the eye.

Those who were gunned down without even a crowbar in their hands to defend themselves we called martyrs and repeated their names and hung posters of their faces everywhere we could, determined that their bloodshed would not be in vain.

I’m caught between my desire to understand and my desire to appear as though I already understand.

QUESTION: If a man’s anger is lovelier than his loveliness, what kind of ending do you expect?

We’re pliable and capricious, shed our skin at the slightest threat, and ultimately stick out everywhere we go.

When I came to her at the age of seven, she made space for me in her narrow bed, and that was how we lived. It was more generosity than I had ever known.

After all these years, it’s this thought keeping me up at night, keeping me as far as possible from home: that her molars could be shining still behind the lips of someone living.

You can see the dream of water in his wet-lashed doe eyes.

He showed me the mosque on Abd El-Khalik Tharwat, where he slept when he had nowhere to go, and his body bears scars in places that should not have seen sharpness.

Let me ask you: Is it possible to contemplate a thing—any thing at all—without sadness?

I can see it happening almost before it happens—all the ways I will be misunderstood.

Why, then, is my conscience chewing in my ears?