Blooming Moons: 2 Poems by Aina Marzia

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Where the walls echo the laughter of the dinner table

Where the walls echo the laughter of the dinner table

Where the sun stains the counter, beming through the window

Where the floor imprints our every step

The ones we’d take at night to sneak food into our bed

Where the mirrors remember the faces I made

the memories from years ago kept still like a photo

The glass of this house knows us too well

Layers of paint we peel off

Uncovering the secrets we erased

My parents tell me a story

Likely something their parents told them

A story I’ll tell my own someday

And then they’ll ask me about this house

To which I’ll reply

If you listen closely enough

The walls echo the laughter of the dinner table

There is not anything more locus

Then the voices of the moving about in the cavity of these walls.

My Name

Mami named me Aina

It’s a way to describe someone with big eyes, in urdu

But in scandinavian, it means always.

In catalan it means grace.

It’s meaningful to think about

And beautiful when said precisely

I’m tired of shortened versions

They’re asking if they can say it another way

I’m tired of being called something

That’s not my name

I want to hear every letter of my name

The melodious sound when pronounced

I want to hear my name

Not what you think is easier to say

I want to hear my name

Just as it is

I want to hear my name

I want to hear what my mami named me

I want to hear my name

Even though it’s different to say

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Aina Marzia is a 16-year-old Pakistani immigrant growing up in the (Frontera) U.S. Mexico

Border. A multi-lingual, cricket fan and avid Twitter user. Her creative writing, poetry, and

journalism work have been seen in, Havik Journal 2021, BElatina News, So to Speak: Feminist

Journal of Langauge, Brave Books, The Austin Chronicle, Muslim Girl, The City Magazine, and

more.

Artist’s Statement: I started writing at a very young age, sometimes in my notes app other times with scribbles on the margins of school assignments. I quickly realized that I not only enjoyed doing it but that it was also a way for me to contribute to something larger than myself. A big part of my work is a need to be heard and to constantly learn and educate those around me. I began writing competitively in the 7th grade after I won a contest that asked the youth to describe their perspective of the August 3rd shooting in my hometown. Since then I have been committed to representative writing, and occasionally funny stories and poems I craft for fun.

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3 November 2022