Nesreen

“I Still Have Everything You Gave Me

It is dusty on the edges.
It is slightly rotten.
I guard it without thinking.
I focus on it once a year
when I shake it out in the wind.
I do not ache.
I would not trade.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye

“Later our dreams begin catching fire around the edges, they burn like paper, we wake with our hands full of ash.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye

“Don't you know how much I hero-worshiped you when I was a kid? You
were Marie Curie crossed with Emily Bronte crossed with Joan of Arc to
me when I was ten. And when i told you that, you said my cultural
references were the sign of a colonized mind.”
― Kamila Shamsie, Broken Verses

“My mother used to tell me when I went somewhere, "Please leave your foolishness at home." But how could I do that? It was stuck on me.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven