It smells like Eid

She finds herself
Staring
At the palm of her hand

Orange clouds
Of henna stains
Moving across
a sky of taqdeer
Etched across her palm

She sits in the window
of her childhood
The foliage
Ebbing and flowing in the waves of her memory
Constant

She has spent the night before
Rolling cellophane into henna cones
Anticipating festivities, ever uncertain
With the women in her life.

It smells like Eid
It smells like the ties
That bind her to her childhood home
She is not ready
to warp the smell of the henna

She is not ready
for a mehndi
Despite the ties that already bind her
to the man
she has chosen to become
the face of her strength.

“Strength
can only ever exist
within”, she tells herself
and looks down at her palm.