Noor Hindi 

At a Coffee Shop in Akron


​You should see the way                we carry our shame. Over
cherry-rose tea and iced               coffee, Vysh and I throw our
wounds onto this scratched             wooden table. She –
postmarked from Sri Lanka.               Me – postmarked from
Palestine. We – immigrant to               both the U.S and our
home countries. But where do we            belong? I ask her.
Between my father’s shattered               Palestinian history
and her mother’s tongue speaking                Tamil, a language
lost to Vysh, we try to become                   unapologetic
women – grow into the people                 we want to be. I crush
an ice cube between my teeth                 pretend I’m breaking
through a cultural barrier. We will                   find our own beauty
despite living between two cultures                   two separate
expectations that shout and shout and                    shout.


Attempt #1


I was that orange firecracker that shot           itself to the moon, then landed in the palms
of your hands. It was the fourth of July. I was all body & breast. & you kept  asking me 
to       say something in Arabic           but I couldn’t stop listening to the sound of your
skull               roaring       through your skin.

when life becomes blurry        cuddle with the nearest object, which is to
say           overindulge.      so what if        you’re the firewood I used to burn                 my
obedience? I peeled         18 years off my skin                Muslim girl         & you popped me
like those blueberry flavored boba pearls you always said          you            loved.

they want to whisk the lust      from my lips,               beat the alcohol from my stomach,
teach me how to not                     desire               other women              how to
rebuild               gardens of shame          in my body. Instead,              I dug my nails into
this broken culture, ran to the closest       sparkler, then lit it with a          hungry tongue. I
carved my own scripture onto         this stomach. nothing has ever felt                 holier.





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Noor Hindi is a University of Akron student who is majoring in English and minoring in Creative Writing. After graduation, she hopes to pursue her MFA in poetry. Her poems have appeared in Diode Poetry, Whiskey Island Magazine, Polaris Literary Magazine, and Allegheny Review. Hindi is also a poetry reader for Rubbertop Review. Check out her poetry blog at nervouspoodlepoetry.com.