Women standing tall

Holding the heaviest of hearts 

Bleeding the blast of a golden city

Of a world’s divine dream

Wiping tears of scattered souls
Sweeping the ashes of unfinished stories

Of young lost future glories

Trying to resuscitate Beirut.

One thousand dollars;

Have become Christopher’s dream

To fly down to his missed homeland

And spend a spectacular vacation

But this same one thousand dollars

Is now Mohammad’s worst nightmare 

It’s his first semester tuition deposit

It’s his mother’s yearly minimum-wage salary.

Fatima’s son; a successful international writer
Spills his homeland ache on endless papers
And in cash-money papers sent to help his mom
But just across the street; Myriam is frustrated
Running in between banks and OMT offices
Begging for an international money transfer
For her own struggling son
Who’s studying abroad … to become … a writer.

Lea and Aseel have been best friends for so long.
Two brilliant ambitious young ladies
Coming from a middle-class working family.
On their senior year; their long-awaited graduation
The pandemic hit, then the economy crashed …
And the “working-class” slowly faded away.
Buying a laptop or an iPad or a cellphone
Is no more an option for their dedicated parents.

Mere survival is now their only choice.
But why should they only survive?
Why should the endless potential of eager minds
Be stopped or suppressed or even oppressed?
With millions hidden in their offshore accounts
Our leaders could not spend only a few thousands
On Aseel and Lea’s hope to rise with words
Igniting flames of freedom that were lost in ignorance. 

An invincible invisible curse 

This old, rash sectarian divide 

Forcing people to pick a side
With endless suffocating rules to abide by;
Ahmad can’t buy more than a baby milk can
Thrown at him like trash in the supermarket
And Charbel can’t get more than a Panadol box
For his terminally ill mother back home.

My people are begging for their inborn rights!
From the greedy roaring lions roaming in a  desolate land

Lashing out at each other in ignorant “plays”
Voicing their so-called care in deceptive words

Daily re-defining of “the worst” 

While we remain lost, disgusted, and shocked
By the harsh inexplicable reality bestowed upon us.

My love, my hope, my faithful patriots

Are slowly dying to stay alive

Presented with only two

Undignified choices to survive:

The fisherman’s bread                      

Or

The sashimi of corruption