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Alternate<\/strong><\/p>\n this is for you\/ little girl\/ who were taught that in Arabic \u0648\u062d\u062f\u0629 [wehda] means loneliness\/ and how you didn’t really know what it meant back then\/ this is for the day you finally did\/ the day you were on a bus being\u00a0 yelled at\/ for being too foreign and too covered up\/ with no one to hold hands with\/ except for your ever <\/p>\n After friday noon prayer my grandfather throws a party<\/strong><\/p>\n dressed as tradition <\/p>\n I took a seat at the table with the assigned name tags<\/strong><\/p>\n i once googled the middle east i’m at the end of a trail of women who had to be beaten so i can hear this heart beat.\u00a0 at the beginning of a trail that lies the hope for it to be unplaced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alternate this is for you\/ little girl\/ who were taught that in Arabic \u0648\u062d\u062f\u0629 [wehda] means loneliness\/ and how you didn’t really know what it meant back then\/ this is for the day you finally did\/ the day you were on a bus being\u00a0 yelled at\/ for being too foreign and too covered up\/ with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14492,"template":"","categories":[20,11],"class_list":["post-14663","stsp_text","type-stsp_text","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-16","category-lyrik"],"yoast_head":"\n
\ngrowing angst\/ this is for you\/ and for the last time you fell into your mother’s embrace\/ how it was the last time you felt just how far your borders reach\/ this is for your mother\/ and for all the days she had her heart aching and\/ became familiar with the sound of it breaking\/ how she taught herself how to glue it back
\ntogether\/
\nthis is for her heart\/ and how it’s ornamental now\/
\nthis is for you\/ girl\/ who goes dancing when it’s raining\/ thinking it’s the city crying for you\/ you\/ girl\/ who goes looking for God\/ in familiar faces around you\/ i know\/ you think the worst is yet to come\/ there is no panacea for your suffering\/ but if you let me\/ i will show you\/ that there are a hundred different ways to ease
\nthe pain
\nand on days you long for cities of oil and blood\/
\nwith borders\/ inviting to cross only in the one direction\/
\nlet me take you by the hand\/ and
\nreimagine the spaces our bodies fit in\/
\nreimagine the places we feel home and let me dream you cities instead of gold and water\/ with borders made out of breadsticks and olive branches\/ i’ll make sure they taste like home\/ this is for all the places you call home\/ this is for you\/ and for the days the melanin on your skin puts a target on your back\/ on those days take a bath in honey\/ remind yourself you are golden\/ go running on the streets and tell them that you have a warmer skin complexion\/ not because you come from a country lying closer to the sun\/
\nbut because your heart is burning\/
\nin solidarity with villages in a country you once belonged\/ villages in a country now caught on fire\/ this for countries caught on fire\/ and for the day you realized that it’s never the tongues of nations affected that speak of postcolonial traces\/ how it was the day you learned that a country can never divorce itself from its history\/ this for histories and the people who write them, but mostly for those they leave out\/ this is for people revolting\/ and for the grounds they march on\/ how they carry them the way you wish you could\/ this is for you\/ and for the day you were the witness to people\/ who marched on grounds embellished with blood drops\/
\npeople
\nwhose battle cry had always been silence\/
\nthis is for you\/
\nlearning that in Arabic \u0648\u062d\u062f\u0629 [wehda] means union<\/p>\n
\noblivion attends.
\nuninvited, but warmly welcome.
\nhe’s very social, makes sure to talk to everyone.
\nhe skips talking to me.
\nmaybe because i’m too loud, curse too much,
\nor because i have what my dad calls a stripper’s laugh.
\nor maybe i was too busy in the toilet glued in front of a mirror,\u00a0 fixing my make up and when i got out, he was too drunk already\u00a0 on everyone’s compliments, that he didn’t need mine.
\nor maybe i left the party too early.
\nrushed to another in a place
\nmore western.
\nor secular.
\nor whatever word is antonymous to home.<\/p>\n
\nand found my grandfather’s fingerprints on the sweet potatoes he baked for me.\u00a0 i once googled the near east
\nand found a trail leading me back to my great great grandmother.\u00a0 i come from neither
\nand both.<\/p>\n
\nnorth of the colour blue. cold in its warm environment.
\nwest of the stripped.
\neast of what now? of oil? sweet in its crudeness.
\nof blood?
\neast
\nis a relativity.
\ni’m a future of the trail positioned,<\/p>\n