Muslims Are Not Real People

By Madina Malahayati

after the trending of #StopIslam in twitter

never knew that my religion was a disadvantage. my mouth, an imprint of fifteen years spent at morning lebaran feasts forehead a mountain carved out from thousands of sujuds and palms worn out from silahturahmis. choking on soda after thirty moon-roundabouts of hunger.

not bloodshed.

alright, i know muslims are bad people. with so many heads decapitated our allahu akbar roaring as red splits on dusty grounds, verses of The Big A telling us to fight in Their way, because it is our duty, our jihad

how can normal muslims exist, right?

muslims who are out here watching their life slip through their fingers, muslims with a stack of unread books, ballpoint ink-stained fingers, paint smeared on cheeks muslims who are only themselves with a can of beer and twelve stubs of cigarettes down

whose prayer mats thrown to the back of their closet; muslims that only remember al-fatihah and only that, never doing salat for two months because they can never bother, mouth rotten with the duas they never say

muslims, muslims like humans, don’t exist in your head, i think.

YOU SAY: So if that’s the case, where is all the Muslim outcry?

I SAY: WE ARE LOUD, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, my voice is hoarse and my throat is dry and i feel like i’m guzzling down acid repeating this like a broken record player saying, saying that we the majority are sorry for our hideous minority, we’re sorry, we’re sorry, why does this feel so repetitive all of a sudden i am not supposed to apologize for something i didn’t do i’m sorry i’m sorry–

but then, the reality is here: that i get to log out of this all and this flesh made out of blood and clay is real.

in another land i am killed.

 

This piece was first published in Rambutan Literary. Madina Malahayati is a fifteen year-old girl who lives in a country that doesn’t automatically exist inside your head. She spends her time crying over the currency rates of rupiah to US dollars and angrily staring at the prices of books in her opentrolley want list. She tweets @falsecatch