Breaking Our Fast with Salt

by Idman Omar

Past hungry, lips white,  
breath like death. 
Bro hugged me like decades had passed. 
Like he had not stayed at ours last weekend,
as if his arms had just that very second 
spouted.  

I’d just learned lipstick and 
my headwrap was punishing me
my neck bled while
our stomachs sang like rocks dragging.

We sat around the table, 
boys and girls wearing trousers 
thinking of sin
pending dining to get rid of it just to 
repeat it again tomorrow.

The air reminded me of cigarettes, 
hazy like a desert for smokers.
Uptown dining pacified us. 
It wasn’t time yet so
we spoke of what we wanted.

Burgers, chips, tired closeness.
We ordered what we needed.
The waitress was nowhere to be seen when
the adhan rang loud on all our phones
to the minute, until bro
passed the salt around and we all 
said ‘Bismillah’ licking a few crystals, 
wincing and feeling renewed again.

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“Both these pieces [“broken boyz in the endz” and “Breaking Our Fast with Salt”] reflect my upbringing. Living as the child of immigrant parents in the UK made me aware of culture, religion and socioeconomic status. My work tries to assess and reason everyday life. To sit in the nooks of reality and try to gain deeper meaning as well as clarity from the blur of city life as a British Somali.” —Idman Omar

Originally from Somalia, Idman Omar is a freelance writer. She has previously been published with Southbank Poetry, Wild-Court and Guernica. Idman is a MA Creative Writing graduate from Birkbeck, University of London.