I WANT TO DIE
in the arms of everyone who’s ever loved me, each
appendage a tendril expanding into the ether
of every moment I am leaving behind. Know this: I have dabbled
in the enterprise of affection; cut my teeth on what it means
to hold and be held. Behold: everything that has ever been
labeled “mine” was stolen.
From me, but also now by me. The land:
from us, and now the land
we were stolen to. I belong to nothing
but my friends—those who have entrusted me
with the gift of caring for them. For years, I trained myself
to not feel for anything to spare myself of having to feel
for everything: no partner, no child; my parents will
soon be gone too. Can you blame me? I watched men
and women say things they don’t mean and claim lives
from bodies they won’t ever eat. Some can’t stomach
culling the protein from a fly, but drop before the silhouette
of a gun. Have you ever fallen for something empty
as a word? For me, it was joy—the way it bounces
when spoken. For years, I would whisper it hopelessly
to the moon. I thought nothing of it
until I found myself brave enough to chant before the sun—
it was in this light that I came to find
my peoples. I took shape among them:
Joy. Joy. Joy—what a lovely thing
to feel. But, then again, the word
doom exists—sometimes
it’s almost too fun not to say. Apocalypse.
Even cicada sounds lovely
with the right inflection. I wonder if
it’s stronger to nestle into the chest
of one’s sadness, or to lie about it.
Once, as a child, I spent a late summer night poking holes
into the window mesh that shielded us
against the bugs we had stolen
away from. Each puncture
a compromise with those creatures
seeking refuge. As I did it, I repeated the syllables:
sim-muh-nim, sim-muh-nim
caught between cinnamon and synonym. Letting each letter
pass through until the end of the word. I imagine that
when this world ends, it will happen like a boy
yearning to be released from a warm room—
little by little, not all at once; unbothered
by the thought of losing his place.
WE ALREADY KNOW THIS
There is more to us than
what was taken from us.
A place to call
home. Land of olive trees,
and their branches.
Palestine. There,
I’ve said it. I want to be sure
everyone knows where my parents
hail from. Each of us
needs a place to return to. Genocide:
I would hope everyone knows
did not start, and did not end
at the Holocaust. I haven’t forgotten that
everyone needs a place on this planet. And I,
I prefer to live where I can leave
the doors unlocked —
or live without the doors —
or hell. I don’t even care
for walls. But, I do care
for the blues: water, the sadness
that comes when it is not within
sight. I don’t know if there is
a child, anywhere on this earth, that wasn’t,
at least once, held by their mother. Water:
where my mother held me
until I was given to land. O firm land —
how my father holds me — people keep calling
for blood, to dress you in it.
I don’t think any of them
know, truly, how much of it
the body can take; how much
the body can lose.
“I WANT TO DIE” first appeared in Poetry Magazine
“WE ALREADY KNOW THIS” first appeared in Tariq Luthun’s Chapbook “How the Water Holds Me”