Her Flag

This piece was performed in the 2019 all-women's KBK Modest Trends Fashion Show before the models hit the runway.

A flag waves in the wind
A universal symbol of a nation
Its fabric flows like water
Channeling to all the corners of the earth
Recognize me

Flags are dangerous
They start wars
Held on spikes of silver
As heartless armies march over the fallen
Obey me

Some flags are spat upon
While others are glorified
Don’t you dare let it touch the ground
Hands off of my colors

But what happens when that flag is wrapped around a woman’s head?
And curls around to cover this woman’s chest?

An unsuspecting woman
From the moment she walks in the room 
You are frozen in awe
Her gentle smile stops your heart
Your eyes dance along the folds of her hijab
Through the twists and turns of her bare soul
She places her deen on her head like a crown
Like the queen she is meant to be
A swish of her wrist and you smell a sweet musk of jannah
She is beauty personified
Courage on overdrive

How can she wear a nation
The ummah
For everyone to see
Like it’s so easy?

A target marks her back as she moves 
She wants to hide in the valleys of cotton
Slip under the rivers of silk
Hiding away
But she knows she’s in plain sight
She knows this fabric is anything but bulletproof

Yet she doesn’t mind

Her scarf crests over her shoulder
Flooding to her waist
Sweeping through the air
Her cape

She is a hero
Saving the world
Saving herself
You can see her face
Not like the cowards of the comics hiding behind a mask

A hurricane swirls behind her eyes
Brisk wind flits across the palm of her hand
Sparks of lighting weave through the seams of her gown
She is mistaken for a monster, a villain, a freak

But no
For she is the monster’s end, the villain’s worst nightmare, and the freak’s greatest prayer
She is a champion, a superstar, a warrior, a winner
A sister, a daughter, a mother, a wife
She is modest, and humble, and loving, and kind
She is the peace in our hearts, the strength that we seek
She is the backbone of kinship, the stability of her husband’s mind
She is a model for her people, a slave to Allah
Subhanallah
Barakallahu feeha
She is a muslimah
​
 -Hawa Rahman