The Good Men Project

The Muslim Women Who Raised Us

the Editors

My mother is a warrior which carries us all on her shoulders me my brother my
father my grandfather a thousand years of history around her neck it is a war
she wages alone at the bus-stop mall the train station classroom her office the
courthouse the bank the halls of power the television she wages fight to prove
her place he’s proud like that you can raise a village on that pride you know
and yes she has she raised us her very existence of thorn in the neck of blind
hate of a world bent on fitting her bones at the boxes on keeping her
shadowed and silent but she speaks anyway when she speaks
they listen my sister is a prizefighter shadowboxing
in the moonlight she raises us with her hands wrapped and bloody and hard and
nobody asked her to fight this hard when us men hide in shirts and jeans shave
jaws and blue eyes nobody asks us where we’re going why we are here what we are…

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