A Letter to my Egyptian People Across Space and Time
by Eman Desouky
It is time to wake up.
It is time to step into who we are with all the magnitude of earthquakes.
Listen.
I am a queer afro arab femme woman who speaks Arabic softened by the lyrical valleys and mountains of Nubian, Coptic, and Kemetian. I am an afro arab child of the stars. I am expansive as the heavens. Sitting at the feet of my ancestors, in awe of all that was and all that is to be, I know my worth.
I am expansive as the galaxies.
My ancestors travelled across space and time. I am simultaneously human and not human. I am african and arab. I came from Ma’at and Mariam. I am ascendent.
My people! Our ancestors were wondrous and created humanity as we know it and in ways we can’t comprehend, yet.
Listen.
مصر .. أم الدني
The Arabs proclaimed Egypt as the mother of the world. Guided by the heavens, our ancestors’ very lives were in vibrant, juicy alliance with the cosmos as they birthed so much of our earthly understanding of the world. They voyaged across oceans long before the european ships came. Our ancestors lived on the borders of the Sahara as they rode horses over dunes. They sang songs to the winds that carried their prayers on the Nile. They danced with sand between their toes and touched their foreheads to the fertile soil of the delta.
Listen:
No one can take our african legacy away from us. No arab nationalist, no colonizer, no hotep can take this legacy away from us. It is us.
I look at those of you who are threatened by my liberation and flash the 3ayn on you. I no longer give my power to you. I keep it all for myself because it is mine. And I rise.
You don’t know me. Don’t you know I am everything?
I am the entire galaxy in a drop.
My copper brown skin, the greatest gift of the Egyptian sun, is molten and luscious. Fuck with me and you will burn.
...
The separation between North Africa and below the Sahara slowly stitched back together again through my prayer. My ancestors knew no division. I am healing.
I am a mother. I am the mother of the world.
I am Egypt.
I am not binary.
I am multitudes.
I am freedom fighter.
I am black.
I am black.
I am arab.
I am Nubian.
Listen:
I am no longer betraying myself and the people I come from.
I honor myself
I honor my black self
I honor my Egyptian self
My heart bursts as I write this. As if my short life explodes at the thought of even beginning to match a drop of my ancestral legacy. Yet I am full of pride and love.
In the practice of being beyond space and time, I finally understand that my life is not scarce, that my life is infinite.
Don’t you dare lose yourself, beautiful. Everywhere you look you are found:
Isis holding the newborn Horus in her arms.
The constellations first named with the tongues of your people.
Food as medicine.
Malachite and Lapis.
Majestic tombs dedicated to life after Earth.
Infinity.
Your majesty is in my bones, ancestors. I bow in deep gratitude at your feet. I promise to never forget this. You are my reason. I look to you with every breath. You are my memory. When I stop and listen, I remember.
The world has been ending and beginning, ending and beginning. Beginning and ending. Across centuries. Across time and space. We survived. Each and every one of us is a testament to this survival. Don’t you forget this, beautiful.
Across galaxies, stars burst and spawn their seed into worlds and worlds beyond our imagination.
I am ready.
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