roam, girl child (a migrant is also an astronaut)
it’s funny how small everything looks from space / you will find / your finger will loiter on the
chalk outline / simulated silhouette / tracing the carcass of your nation /
this land, once the dazzling unknown / you were confronted by twinkling stars yet
devastating desperation / but screens cannot mirror the sensation of hands / grabbing into
nothingness / a void of an ocean most times /
you are on margins of everywhere, nowhere / your need sprouts needles for claws / swing
from tree to tree only to / collapse into vacuum / there is no such thing as echolocation /
when there's no echo /
spill past the brink / reach past that shore / and leave no discernable coastline / there is no
scientific explanation for this astronaut’s world ending
Manahil Rashid Awan, from Pakistan and raised in the UAE, is a first-year at Sarah Lawrence. "roam, girl child" draws from her and her parents' migrancy, from moving out at 16 to the Japanese countryside to new adventures in Bronxville.