Dedication
She asks me why I don’t write in Arabic.
“You’re Arab, no?”
“Eh, mbala … but …” I try, more question than statement.
“I am … but …” Always a disclaimer.
What I want to say,
“What does it mean to exist in in-betweens? Shame, self-doubt, siesta?”
So shukran, Zeina, for awakening the languages inside me. I am learning.
And like most things in hijra, this is ongoing.
These stories are living,
and no one can occupy that.
To rebuilding languages, and rebuilding the cities inside us.
Sara Saleh is a daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon, living and learning on Gadigal land. A longtime campaigner for refugee rights and racial justice, Sara has spent over a decade working for grassroots and international organisations in Australia and the Middle East. An award-winning poet and writer, her first poetry collection was released in late 2016. Her writing has been published in English and Arabic in SBS Life, Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, Bankstown Poetry Collections, and global anthologies Making Mirrors, Solid Air: Australian and New Zealand Spoken Word, and A Blade of Grass alongside internationally renowned Palestinian poets Fady Joudah and Naomi Shehab Nye. She is co-editor of the recently released anthology, Arab-Australian-Other: Stories on Race and Identity (Picador 2019), and is developing her debut novel as a recipient of the Affirm Press Mentorship for Sweatshop. She sits on the board of national advocacy organisation GetUp! and is a proud Bankstown Poetry Slam ‘Slambassador’.
