Said Shaiye

A good brother in the Los Angeles area is at risk of homelessness. He has been facing extended financial hardship, emotional trauma and barely survived the January 2025 LA Wildfires. The Palisades Fire came within blocks of his apartment complexContinue readingFundraising For A Friend Facing Eviction

I think of my million cousins and how strange they feel to me. Or I feel to them. Like a lost brother from a parallel universe. They know tidbits of my family story filtered through their parents’ vision, fractured byContinue readingIt Hurts But It May Be The Only Way

Gangland, I’ll be a Visiting Writer at Washington State University this Tuesday, February 11th at 6pm Eastern / 8pm Central time. There’ll be an hour long reading followed by a Q&A with the audience. This is VIRTUAL and you canContinue readingReading at Washington State University Tuesday Night (2/11)

Hey gang! I was a guest author for the Muslim Writer’s Salon last week! Long time, where the hell ya been? Wait, I’m the one that’s been missing. You probably want an apology. We don’t have that kinda relationship, relax.Continue readingMuslim Writer’s Salon

Everyone looks to me for the answers and right now I’m looking for answers. I keep thinking: “write a book that changes the world” and I keep asking myself why? I put all my eggs in one basket. Just becauseContinue readingNiggas Don’t Know Me (ad infinitum)

I got a reading + Q&A coming up THIS Sunday, 3/27. 2PM central time, 12PM Pacific. Museum of African Diaspora has this African Book Club. Are You Borg Now? was chosen as the book of the month for March. … Continue readingMoAD Book Club Reading This Sunday

To all the girls I blocked before Hear me now: This life is all or nothing Nothing makes waste of nothing Something is better than nothing Unless that nothing is more complete Than nothing… which is actually quite Remarkably similarContinue readingUpstairs Friends

The true test of my faith, these days, is seeing myself as sincere & pious, even as I’m mired in sin. I’ve never had a good self-image. Always thought the worst of myself. I blame my upbringing, and my disposition,Continue readingTrue Test of Faith

I am so fed up. I’m seeing red. I’ve been fighting for my economic life out here.  Being a grad student is hell, man. Poverty. Stress. You know the rest. I’m about to graduate soon. That’s got me scared. AsContinue readingSilent Autistic Scream

As for the performances. Well, I should preface the first one by saying it was in promotion of an anthology that just came out. WE ARE MEANT TO RISE: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. I have an essay in there called DIDION DREAMS. … Continue reading2 New Published Poems, 1 Anthology & A Few Recent Performances

Gang gang, I finally created a photo page. I be into film photography now. I’ll try to keep updating it, but tbh, it took me a week of having the tab open just to do this much. So, appreciate itContinue readingWe Now Have A Photo Page

So if you know me you know that Hanif Abdurraqib is one of my favorite writers. I mean, he’s informed so much of my style and approach to writing. I walked around with THEY CAN’T KILL US UNTIL THEY KILLContinue readingConversation with Hanif Abdurraqib

In 2003 this country was obsessed with Afghanistan. A patriotic fervor in the air which said: We must invade them and save them from the Taliban. I must have been 13. I am now 33. I hit refresh on myContinue readingDon’t Let Me Be American

I guess it’s like midnight:01 and I’m burping in my hotel room. I’m not drunk, you weirdo. Just sick. Which is a type of being drunk, if you think about it. Drunk from being healthy. But all metaphors and allusionsContinue readingFear & Loathing in Nairobi

Gang! I’ll keep this brief. The book is out (yay!). You can grab that here: https://rlysrslit.bigcartel.com/product/are-you-borg-now-said-shaiye Sahan Journal did a really fantastic piece on the book + my story. You can read that here: https://sahanjournal.com/arts/said-shaiye-are-you-borg-now/ I had a book releaseContinue readingNew Pubs + Book Out

I know they ain’t think we’d make it far. Yet here we are. Life is like a cloudy day and sometimes with sun breaks. I mean, my life. The shame inside me roils up and tells me that I’m notContinue readingMissed Prayer Math

So it’s still hella weird to me when places choose to publish my work. I mean, I get it, my writing is decent on a good day, and sometimes other people see that, too. But publishing in general is aContinue readingSome Recent Publishing Success

I feel so low that the ground may as well be a skyscraper. ///// I’m standing at it’s base, looking up at the groundscraper. //// At times like this, every word takes life-energy 2 produce & shoot up that groundscraperContinue readingBelltown Burning

//// I thought Black Thought had an obsession with Somali Bars unti I had a Black Thought that he was simply pronouncing sommelier like Somali-yay instead of sommelier. Then I Black Thought that I might be the one with aContinue readingGriselda x3

Life don’t feel like life when all you’ve ever known is a deep lingering desire to not be alive. You don’t tell people about this. You just keep walking like Christopher. You deleted your facebook today. You don’t care, you’reContinue readingShoot Sideways ft. Alan the Chemist, ScHoolboy Q & Conway the Machine

This poem inspired by Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle’s genre-defying book, SIR. Go get that, ASAP.

that way of raising boys becomes ritual without context – it becomes a sword, not a shield, and there is only so much protection a sword can bring. … Continue readingTrauma: Thy Name Is Somali Boy

And when my young bulls ask me how to keep walking, I tell em yeah, keep your head up nigga

You don’t need to see the ground to know how to walk … Continue readingYung Bulls’ China Shop

The maps that colonizers made to demarcate boundaries, both physical and intellectual, still serve to reinforce notions of superiority which were used to justify the dehumanization of Black people. But, this book looks at all sides of the equation. It’s not merely a tale of Black longing to belong, to a place they may no longer recognize, but still inherently know. … Continue readingBook Review: A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand

Sorry I couldn’t respond to your email I was too busy wondering if I’ll get lynched You know, what with all these Nazis in the streets Red hatted demons screaming niggers oughta bleed . Sorry I didn’t see your textContinue reading1 Pen

99 Luftballons always reminds me of when my mom, my two younger brothers and I lived in a women & children’s shelter across the street from the Key Arena in Lower Queen Anne for a few months in 1997. … Continue readingSacred Heart

I roll my windows down after iftar, sipping on a mango lassi, blasting UGK, bass rattling the stop light. The warm summer breeze wafts in through my sunroof. The sun has dipped. I’m savoring this one song, this one sin, as if it’s a cigarette. … Continue readingDear Diary

By the river
By the masjid

By the park
By the coffee shop

By the bridge
For the sunset … Continue readingTwo Poems

I’ve never told this part of my story. You may know that I lived in Somalia for 3 years, but what I never mentioned is that I was on antidepressants for a good year out of those 3. After IContinue readingKalabaydh