A Prince Song 

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Whispers drowned out your mourning,

yesterday when you stared up at the moon

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light poured from the sky, and I drowned

holy shit I drowned

but I kind of liked it

because I felt like a mermaid even though

my lungs were filled with pebbles and moss

and my skin was black and blue

and my drowning kind of felt like a weird rain dance

so, I drowned-slash-danced

to the chorus of a Prince song

I was dead but I was alive

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In Islam we follow the lunar calendar

Shawwal starts when the crescent moon is high in the air

Like the letter ‘daal’ or ‘ra’ or ‘za’

june is the rain season and july is ramadan

and eid falls, sometimes, in december and

others times in spring.

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I came here to sing a Tina Turner song

but every time I open my mouth lavender

petals and lily pads fall out,

does that mean I’m dying?

Khadro Mohamed is a 20-something year old Wellington based poet. You can find her writing on platforms such as: Starling magazine, Pantograph Punch, The Spinoff and more. Her upcoming poetry collection is set to be published by Poneke based press We Are Babies.