bullets for eyes and machete hands.

your children are not weapons,
but using them as such
will make him sharp.

they will hate themselves.

it does not feel nice,
to be the knife
your mother uses
to cut your father open.

you are astonishingly average.

i don't remember forgetting you.

ashes to ashes

dust to dust. those once with them are now with us.

the prince's tale

severus snape, you are beautiful and misunderstood. you loved a woman, and it saved you. even as it ruined you. you were the enemy that saved them all. the hero everyone spat on.

you were the traitor who saved the world. the man who loved the woman who died for the boy who lived.

rest in peace.

jidi, pt. 2

My father ran away from rallies, refusing to pump his fist for a tyrant. His father told him to beg in the streets before he spied on people. He said, "We aren't those people, who bow and spy and tell others' secrets."

pt. 3

remember when mutasim raised an army to rescue one woman?

jidi.

My father was twelve years old on September 1st, 1969. He woke up and turned on the radio to hear military music. My father asked his own father what was wrong.

He doesn't say this when he tells the story, but I imagine my grandfather's spine straightening under the weight of heavy future. I imagine the room being thick with cigarette smoke and morning light, the remnants of breakfast, olive pits and scraps of bread, strewn at their feet. I imagine my father, younger than my brain can fathom, looking up to his own father for guidance, explanation. I imagine my grandfather's eyes as heavy, tired things.

This is the scene I set in my mind when my father tells the story. When he gets to the part where my grandfather says, "The government has been overthrown. Libya will never see the light again."

word from tunis.

tripoli is a war zone. nobody breathes. people disappear in the night.

our history, pt. 2

remember when richard, with the heart of a lion, shook like a leaf before salah al-deen?

our history

remember when the tigris ran black? when the river bled our words for months?