Tag: Nardien Sadik

Welcome to Writers Resist Spring 2026 Issue

Welcome to the vibrant words and images of spring, celebrating the memory of Marsha P. Johnson, beloved and befamed transgender LGBTQ rights activist and Stonewall Inn heroine.

If you’d like the link to the virtual reading for this issue, 18 April at 5:00 pm PACIFIC, please email us at writersresist@gmail.com.

Now, join us and our contributing resisters, while we flip the flaming bird at the antis and revere all that proclaims our identities.

Why does a tranny cross a yellow brick road? by Mx. Asher

To David Lehman by Waverly Vernon

Run by JL Smither

Ahead of the Storm by Laura Ann Reed

Absent Hills by Johanna Haas

This Is the Way Our Words End— by Dennis Humphrey

Doomscrolling isn’t solidarity by Maxochitl Cortez

Warning by John L. Holgerson

Two Poems by Robin Michel

Trashy by M.R. Mandell

Duality of Dogma by Nardien Sadik

No Vacation by Raymond A. Mazurek

On the Road to Samarra by Marissa Glover

planning the ballroom by Alexis Rhodes

Pledge by Dion O’Reilly

When Should We Senior Women Not? by Ann Grogan

Choices by Alice Benson

Duality of Dogma

By Nardien Sadik

In the church of lights,
where the nuns pray faithfully each morning,
beating even the sun in rising.
There is undeniable spirituality in every crevice,
every knee bowed a testimony to our God’s authority
and a defiant expression of faith in a country that would rather see
a Copt shot dead than alive and evangelize.

The invasion was only the beginning of a lifetime of tribulations,
but the blood of the Coptic people never ran dry,
despite many an attempt at erasure.

Presently, in anaphora,
a symphony of hymns sung by simple saints,
interrupted by the stubborn reminders of our captors
every day.

In a language forced down our throats, or having a tongue cut out completely,
we swallowed blood
and spat out Arabic coercively.

The sisters, unbothered by this they continue their melodies with a smile.
The act of defiance is small but powerful.

I learn what it means to fight peacefully,
turning the other cheek to
sing our next psalmody.

Nardien Sadik is a Coptic American spoken word poet and Georgetown Law student living in Washington, D.C. She has been writing since she was fourteen, weaving together themes of identity, justice, and belonging.

Photo credit: PF Anderson via a Creative Commons license.

A Note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.