Mariam Ahmed works as an academic coach at a local high school. She also teaches yoga and poetry workshops. Her role as an educator with California Poets in the Schools allows her to draw inspiration from young poets who endlessly roast her choice in profession.

You Belong Here

by Mariam Ahmed

At a sticky café table in Karachi,
my father’s voice mingled with the city's:

Picture a fountain—
pigeons pecking, gray
against the bright plume of peacocks,
two worlds never touching.
But one pigeon, captivated by colors,
dreamed of joining their dance.

The others laughed,
called it foolish,
but the pigeon gathered

fallen peacock feathers,
pinned them to its plain wings,
and with this patchwork of pride
approached the bright flock.

The peacocks saw through the disguise,
the false feathers falling,
and cast the pigeon out,
their contempt sharp as their tails.
Rejected, it turned back to its own—
only to find it too was a stranger there,
mocked for its longing, for daring to change.

Alone, it wandered,
belonging to neither sky nor ground.

In the heat, I wondered—
Why did the pigeon stay,
and not fly far away?

I am the pigeon, or the peacock,
or some other bird entirely,
lost in the branches of this tangled belonging.

Mariam Ahmed is a poet and educator living in San Diego, CA. Her poems can be found in Maintenant, Folly Journal, Flint Hills Review, Panorama, Ignatian Literary Magazine, The Offending Adam, and elsewhere. Her book reviews can be read in Poetry International, Atticus Review, and The Los Angeles Review. Mariam holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from San Diego State University. When she is not writing or teaching, she enjoys meditating by the ocean.

Website: mariamahmed.com