نسأل: هل نرحل أم لا نرحل؟ لا نسأل: هل البقاء خيار أصلا، إذا كنا نرغب في العيش بسعادة؟ تنشأ المعضلات من هذا التناقض، حيث نعتقد أن هجرتنا طوعية. عندما لا نرى القوة الساحقة تشردنا، فإننا نحاسب أنفسنا على التخلي عن بلدنا

Lebanon stands at the center: a rather unwelcoming refuge to the displaced Syrians and, simultaneously, home to millions of migrants who leave it in search of stability and basic living. When we close our doors to those who are escaping instability, we are shutting our mind to the fact that we are also the ones being displaced.

Migration is our new theme, in light of the increasing drift between the new generation that has left, and that which has stayed.

Do we not turn our energy and frustration into solemn verses of dedication that change the subject once it loses its guiding torch? Do we not repress and thus oppress? Does our soul not shrink so it can crawl into that little nook in which it is told it will dwell forevermore?

Stepped on by feet, covered in dust
Screaming out for peace and liberty,
Agonizing lust.
And so I offered my cold soul a blanket
And gave my lost life a glass

We’d sit together for hours but we wouldn’t talk and wouldn’t look at each other and probably wouldn’t breathe and it would sickeningly feel like forever but we’d still be strangers sometimes even after we’d go back to bed until something suddenly clicked and things would fit back where they belonged.

أنا عروسٌ ورقيّة
وردائي أسود اللّون.
أنا عروسٌ ورقيّة وحفل زفافي
مزادٌ علنيّ
يقسّمون ويتقاسمون جسدي وكياني

You’re taking away something that’s not yours,
For robbery isn’t just about money and jewelry.
She can still feel your hand on her back,
She can retrace your fingers on her remains,
For death’s not only a burial.

I have never been to Palestine before and I’m not physically allowed to go there because I don’t have a paper that grants me the opportunity to experience my homeland and what it’s like to feel rooted… to maybe, for once in my lifetime, feel at home, at peace: stable. This truth makes me feel less Palestinian, but I try to layer it with the fact that I live in Lebanon and have friends and memories here.

We are stripping Beirut of its skin

peeling dried walls

pestering the edges to rip another layer off.

We are out on the concrete

our running shoes are back home

our feet are burning