Lisa Suhair Majaj Quotes

My writing process is generally a bit haphazard. I carry notebooks around to capture ideas, observations, phrases, images, chunks of freewriting. I shift to the computer to do more substantive writing and work on craft issues. I always generate multiple drafts of pieces (keeping all drafts in a separate folder), and often experiment with form in different versions to see what fits the text best.

how a word transforms us
seedling taking delicate hold
or a weed choking the tender plants
news enters us and puts down roots

soon syllables will fall from her lips
the first rain

what's left but
shards of memory
smoothed and hoarded,
shrapnel griefs,
a few regrets?

Remember the splintered staccato
of bullets against rock, the way dust rose
in the stunned aftershock of silence?

Did my parents know
that what they planted,
roots against the drought,
would survive?

No matter how far you've come, remember:
the starting line is always closer than you think.

Today his words surround me
with the quiet intensity of growing things,
roots planted a long time ago
lacing the distances of my heart.

The distance between one breath and another
is like the miles starlight travels to reach
my dreams.

We learned to let our faces hide
our selves, to speak our story in a private
tongue, the past a shadow in our bones.

consider a delicate porcelain bowl
how it crushes under a single blow-
in one moment whole years disappear

These words are the weight
cupped in our palms:
the small broken note of freedom.