Samira S🇧🇩

y’all. Y’ALL. Front page of the New York Times newspaper I DO NOT have enough chill abt this 🧿 and say hi to the new byline — one that includes my mom’s name. That story is for another day. Today I … arrive. here. to stay ⚓️ Last pic: Ma when she realized her name is now a part of this … mess 🌪

Y’all I’m on… HBO??! With a poem of mine? about Bangladeshi food! And moms! And immigrant stories. And how sometimes I cook khichuri at 3am. I have many Thoughts and Feelings to share but for now just celebrating this freaking honor. As @margiaisdreaming , who danced to this poem, said: “Girl, we’re putting Bangladesh on HBO.” YES WE ARE 🇧🇩 ✊🏽 Many, many thanks to @capitalkpictures for trusting my work, @imjess_seng for reaching out in the first place and for working extra hard during the shoot to make sure my tattoo didn’t show throughout the video so that, most importantly, my parents’ friends could watch this. Check out #takeoutwithlisaling on @hbomax . This episode is “Land of Rivers”.

Mon Jan 10 | Tue Jan 11

i swear, this time 🌹 | 2026 | also — raccoon penis bones anyone??

today marks seven months since Mamoni’s passing. this morning i woke up to a spotted-dove outside my window. She was there briefly but something about her presence felt personal. Stayed with me throughout the day. So I looked up to see what they’re called — a “Mourning Dove” and apparently highly googled in new york. One morning last week, I found my hands clasped in prayers (i don’t pray), uncontrollable tears, my closed eyes and closed fists facing the sky outside my window, in deep want from the universe for a sign. anything. i didn’t even know what i needed a sign for, just that i needed one. Today I looked up what Mourning Doves mean: spirits and angels sending protection during difficult times; Someone from the other side sending you reassurance and comfort. My first thought was, is it her? Then immediately: why would she do that she has literally (a) her own children & grandkids (b) a LOT of her other children to visit?? If you’re from a family as large as mine, like it’s a really long queue ngl. Then, immediately, a ঝারি from her: “কেন তোরা কি আমার বাচ্চা না?” I saw her in my dream a few weeks ago. She looked SO OK. She was in a blue silk sharee, sitting on the prayer mat and kept saying, “No really, I really am here. Look, this plant of yours I even kept it on my shelf.” The “plant” in question was a monstera leaf I’d accidentally cut off the night before and had put in a small jar in the hopes to propagate. I don’t even know if you can propagate monsteras; and I no longer care. I move the leaf around the house, all the time. I’ll place her next to my window today. Thank you for visiting me and the ঝারি, Mamoni. I remember you in the smallest everyday things.

I deliberated a lot before sharing this. I was about to take my first step down the stairs when I saw the text about Sufi’s death. My conditioned brain blurted out Inna Lillah and I immediately cracked up inside because he would be INFURIATED at that LOL. Later that day, on my way back from work, I got into a huge fight with an incel mf-er on the train. He wouldn’t move his leg and when I confronted him he pushed me etc etc, and my voice kept rising to a point that I eventually lost the plot. I was shaking as I left the station, unable to digest any and all of it. That’s when it crossed my mind: a reminder. a nudge. Sufi would’ve cheered me the hella on. “একদম ঠিক করসো!” I can just hear him say that with gritted teeth. I deliberated before sharing this because my grief about him has been full of deliberation. Is it my grief? Are you allowed to mourn someone who was a Past in your life? What if that person became Present after a cancer diagnosis, reaching out to say bye, sorry, thank you? I don’t get it. If there’s anything I’ve learned about grief it’s that I don’t get it. I wrote this as I sat in the waiting room of a cancer ward as a dear one went through her ordeal with it (she’s a kickass baddie so she’s doing good!!). Sufi was on my mind a little more. I’ve always hated this “lost battle with cancer” BS. And I felt this disdain even more as I sat in the ward surrounded by others (including a toddler) fighting cancer. Sufi didn’t “lose” his battle to cancer. He kicked cancer’s ASS. He lived beyond the timeline that was given to him. He made amends. He fucking lived. And he got to witness July revolution. He didn’t lose. No one sitting in that cancer ward waiting room is capable of “losing.” Sufi took photos, so many of our memories with him don’t actually have him in them, because he was the one behind the camera. I found this photo, and apparently I’m the one who took it. I’m glad I did.

Hi friends, I’m really excited to be teaching a workshop in a technique that I built from scratch! This one’s special for me because it stems from “mistakes.” I built this because I’m clumsy af so I misread things all the time, then I decided to make something out of it — only to realize how many others this can belong to (those with accents, those hard of hearing, those with dyslexia etc). Many thanks @nodear_mag for giving this space to something very meaningful on my writing journey 🌸 🗓️: Monday March 9 ⏰: 7-9 PM est 📍: ZOOM (link in bio) 🎟️: $30

all that we planted in december 🌱 (ft. my plaid fleece jacket that i paid a jackson heights uncle $10 for and is my latest obsession if you can’t tell)

On 2025, broken things, and what we owe them: one of my favorite magnets broke today. i didn’t know it was my favorite magnet. but it’s one of the few pieces of my sister (who I haven’t seen in 7 years now) I have in my home, so I didn’t want to throw it. I didn’t want to keep something broken in my house either or dare to carry it into the new year. It is a deeply insignificant problem with potentially disastrous panic for even a remotely superstitious person: broken things don’t — can’t — belong in new beginnings. Isn’t that crazy? Our obsession with getting rid of broken things? As though broken is the worst thing something can be? As though we are not all made of our own broken pieces, and that of others — friends, family, lovers, strangers on the subway — walking around, holding together each others’ chipped edges? I lost two moms and a friend in the past year. And through that, I learned, loss is not the only experience of grief. Ugly is not the only experience of brokenness. There’s a sanctity to it all: the memories, the chipped edges, the suddenly finding their number on your phone and realizing it outlived its owner, the glue sticking to your finger as you try to “fix” it, the tears sticking to your skin as you mourn them in the cold face of winter. I am wrapping up this year still happy, still broken, and still full. And I hope to carry into 2026 the unapologetic existence of things that are broken and full. I managed to put the magnet together enough to stick it back on the fridge. I missed my sister, deeply, cursing fate as I placed superglue on the edges, the thick ones, the light ones, determined to make sure the broken creases place right where they should. It didn’t quite turn out that way. You can still see the part where it sliced and chipped away. And I can’t wait to carry it into what’s ahead, what’s new — maybe equally fragile, hopefully equally sacred.

i crossed into midnight in tears, mid-anxiety attack, ugly crying on my friend’s lap. I lay on my couch a half moon, my head snuggled into their sweater and their hand বিলি-ing my back. What is sacred if not that. What is love if not that. 36 years around the sun. I have seen the good the ugly the fuck-yous the i love yous the call me when you get home the i left the last bite for you the remember whens the i dressed up for your night the i miss you in my bones. all of it amid things that life can throw at you at unwanted hours, like eve of midnight on your birthday. but what is sacred if not this: curled up on your friend’s lap. the florist refusing to charge you for the flowers (“Don’t block my blessings”). your friend reading you poems while you get your tattoo. the rib-shattering laughter after tripping on the pavement and breaking your mug. your sister who NEVER remembers anyone’s birthday, staying up till midnight to wish you. how is this anything but a prayer, answered. a prayer that fulls a half-moon.

was going to write about how shitty last few weeks have been but going through my pics, all I felt was, dang, truly what a privilege it is to be overwhelmed by a life I once prayed for. That too, to be able to have my village walk with me. ft. not one not two but THREE glimpses of @maddiethien ’s Book Of Records because I’m still recovering