{"id":14144,"date":"2026-02-19T02:44:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=14144"},"modified":"2026-02-20T17:51:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T17:51:30","slug":"__trashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=14144","title":{"rendered":"Ode to the Vast Space of Sand We Called a Football Field – Isra Abdalla"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

& i don\u2019t know how to tell you about
how emptiness can be holy if you never look down\u2013
boys building a universe out of a deflated football
boys that would be kings that would be gods
boys that would be pulled out of their
mother\u2019s bodies that would be pulled
out of rubble & what is rubble if you wear a crown
for long enough?

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& i don\u2019t know how to tell you about
when no one knew the ringing of a gun\u2013
boys who never know how the bullet lodges itself
into their ribs like it\u2019s trying to make a home in the malaise
between life and extinction. i hope that nobody has to know
what it is to be betrayed by a city that extorts blood
to gold. that nobody has to be left behind by a city
promising itself into a homeland

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& i don\u2019t know how to tell you about
the irony of sudan being on fertile land\u2013
boys that will be brothers that will be fertilizer
boys grasping at the holy cradle of a lying mother
boys knowing that the swell of a womb is always spectral
& you run so fast that you fly you run so fast
you barely notice matriarchal teeth sinking into boy\u2019s skin

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& i need to tell you about how
you run so fast you barely notice the tender tongue of
rebirth licking its way into boy\u2019s bodies until they
meld into each other & you can\u2019t tell them apart past
blood on black bodies & blood on black bodies
& i can only ask you to see
the light & see the light & see<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

\"\"Isra Abdalla (she\/her) is a second-year student pursuing an undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature. She is a Sudanese writer and a certified theatre kid (with a minor in theatre). Her work has been published in Partially Shy Magazine, Catheartic Magazine, Healthline Zine<\/em>, and her university\u2019s literary journal. More of her work can be found on fruitjam.substack.com<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

& i don\u2019t know how to tell you abouthow emptiness can be holy if you never look down\u2013boys building a universe out of a deflated footballboys that would be kings that would be godsboys that would be pulled out of theirmother\u2019s bodies that would be pulledout of rubble & what is rubble if you wear [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[487,488],"class_list":["post-14144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-one-of-20-skulls-of-ovaherero-and-nama-people-returned-to-namibia-at-a-ceremony-in-berlin","tag-photo-by-michael-sohn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14144"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14355,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14144\/revisions\/14355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}