See, the thing is, we try and strike while the iron hot. Nowadays writing is a negotiation of energy. Or, rather, a negotiation of my body and its relationship to energy. In this post long-covid reality of mine, I’m grateful for any wins I can take. In the last 4 years, I’ve learned how to be thankful for anything my body does. I been alive so long that I forgot every breath is a miracle, every keystroke a blessing. On good days, when these prescriptionContinue readingon adhd meds & long covid

Gangland, Long time, very long time. Hope all is well. I’ve been laying low. You know how that goes. Anyway, I’ll keep it short. There’s a 2nd Edition of Are You Borg Now? that dropped in June 2025 with Noemi Press. It’s got an introduction by the big homie Douglas Kearney and a buncha new content. You can grab a copy here. I had an essay published in a Bloomsbury Anthology titled Divergent Writers: Disability, Illness, Neurodivergence, and Ableism in Creative Writing. You can grabContinue readingSome Updates From Shaiye Industries

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 by the language gap created by American Upbringing. I think of my cousin, diagnosed bipolar, who I haven’t seen in years. I remember trying to help him get help. Driving to the emergency room at 3am. I try not to think of these things. I wantContinue 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 can watch the stream on YouTube. I’ve embedded the link on this post, but here’s a direct link: WATCH ME READ That’s all! Thanks for reading and hope to see you there! And if I recently blocked you: SORRY!

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. I produce words if/when I’m able, you read them if/when you desire. There’s no room for apologies in our dichotomy. Oooh, bars. Anyway. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Said Shaiye (@saidshaiye) When Writing Advice is as Ableist as a Flight ofContinue 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 because I write does it mean it’ll change the world? I think the real question here is one of worthiness, of deservedness. Do I deserve to write? Am I worthy of it? (Who put these questions in your head)? In many ways the industry has won,Continue 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 similar to something Depending on who that thing is meant for Yes, yung nigga, vespa wrapped in velour Softer than the last girl I blocked before She got a chance to profess her love to a Yung nigga, allergic to doves So I eat them withContinue 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, and my PTSD. I’d blame autism, but I don’t want to ascribe any more negative things to that beauty. I space out my lines, now, to make them easier to read. Not for anyone else but myself. And if others read this, just as well.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. As hard as it is being a grad student, being in the working world is even harder. At least for me, Mr Autistic Survivor of Childhood Trauma. I’m so depressed this winter, man. I’m clinging to the rope of Allah. He is all I have. IContinue 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 it for what it is — a moment — that may never come again. Check it out in the drop menu or click here: https://www.saidshaiye.com/photos/ Hope y’all staying warm and popping vitamin D like I used to pop (redacted) pills. All the poetry, Ya Boy Sy-Eid

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 KILL US for a solid year. You couldn’t tell me there was any other book on the face of the earth worth clinging onto like that. That Ric Flair essay? Man. Anyway, lemme stop being a Stan for a moment to tell you what I cameContinue 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 my Apple News Feed. Story after story talks in code: Islam represses women. Of course, those aren’t the words they use. They say “The Taliban will set women back 20 years now that they’ve taken over Afghanistan.” We all know what they mean.  How do IContinue 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 allusions and blah blah blah aside, I don’t drink. You should know that by now. No, I’m cooped up in my hotel room in Nairobi. Been here just over a month. Been sick the whole time. It’s a crazy story. At first I thought it wasContinue 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 release show and it went wonderfully, Alhamdulillah. Thank God for virtual events. Thanks to Hillary Leftwich at Alchemy Author Services for putting on this wonderful show for me. Thanks as well to Doug, Aïcha, and Suleiman for supporting me in so many ways. You can watchContinue 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 not worthy of God’s love or any love and I know this is fallacy, this is false. I know on an intellectual level, but my heart still questions it. I’m chill. Flip the phone over and do not disturb me. Looking at the list of missedContinue 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 a crapshoot and I have gotten so used to the rejections that the acceptances almost mean less now. Well, not really, but I guess my relationship with publishing has changed. Anyway, it’s all good, and I’m happy nonetheless. Grateful, even. I don’t want to sound ungrateful.Continue 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 groundscraper ///// Nothing left 2 give, crawling outta graves I was the one 2 digg. //// It seems winters are soul-less, & this addiction got me fumbling for soulace. //// I mean air, I need air, but soul and space and air are synonyms for theContinue 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 a Somali Bar Obsessison. We don’t even drink. At least, we not posed to. I wanted to tell that to my old neighbor in Mogadishu. Asked him why he was day drinking and swerving his white Prado through army checkpoints, throwing bribe money out the window,Continue 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’re shutting everyone out. You wake up screaming at 3am but you don’t actually wakeup, but you are waking up inside your dream, screaming, and no one can hear you. The worst screams are those that go unheard. The silence implies that your voice makes noContinue 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 text I was busy consoling my family Telling them things will be okay Even though I don’t believe my own words . Sorry I’m hard to reach I’m in bed at morning o’clock 3 Scrolling articles scholarly Trying to find proof that Black people deserve toContinue 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