the blueshift journal

my father taught me to kill gentle.

to use the small blade.

no need for extravagance.

there is one job to be done.

​

the children must be fed.

the lamb is what we have to offer.

i am nineteen. i am a boy

who longs to be a man.

all it takes is one motion.

a small cut, my father says. the throat

is the softest place on any animal.

abu ali ties its feet together.

i grip the dagger’s handle.

bismillah al-rahman al-rahim.

hesitate. close my eyes. relinquish all guilt.

for us to eat, something must die.

today, i hold a different blade. machete.

two feet of ungodly metal.

there is a place that will sharpen my sword for cheap.

the sound of the machine the most prayerful hum.

i wait, cross legged. wonder when

i will have to choose my life or another’s.

i am a few weeks fresh from the latest hate crime.

i am still shaking from the memory

of everyone watching, no one trying to help.

i am a man who longs to be a boy again.

i know too much of the world and its people.

how they decide who deserves to be spared.

but my father raised me

to never make the same mistake twice.

all it takes is one motion.

a small cut. any part of the body

is soft when the steel is jagged enough.

i keep the weapon between the two front seats

of my nissan. i will never let a white man

come at me like that again.

when i have nightmares

i say the holy words.

bismillah al-rahman al-rahim.

in the name of god, the most gracious and merciful.

i am both

the sacrificial lamb and the executioner.

the scapegoat and the swordslayer.

the one screaming and the angel of death.

all blades

are made of metal.

chromium, manganese, vanadium

titanium, copper, damascus steel

all metal is torn from the earth

melted, and reshaped into a weapon.

this weapon, the only thing

keeping me from returning to the soil.

but i know

the limitations of my self-defense.

a muslim boy with a sword

is empty compared to a white man with a gun.

but what is a god to a non-believer.

if i am to be the sacrifice, i will stain the ground

with everything irreplaceable.

we fight

even the deadliest plague.

i blink and i am nineteen again.

sabre in hand. i hesitate. close my eyes.

mouth full of guilt. i do not know how to kill

but there is nothing that cannot be taught.

perhaps my father meant this to be training.

or maybe all he wanted

was for us to eat in peace.

bismillah. bismillah. bismillah.

i pull the knife like a thread.

the lamb’s blood

the same color as mine.