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?

february sixteenth (revolution eve).

her aunt drank tea in a yellow dress

on the eve of a revolution.

she caught her mother kissing her father

in the alcove in the kitchen,

her uncle hugged her and his beard smelled like dinner,

her brother's feet left tracks on the veranda tile,

the neighbor's had a wedding next door

and she was lying in the grass, under the sun

behind garden walls that felt unbreachable

the first time she heard bullet meet flesh

her aunt scratched her own face bloody

her mother vomited in the flower beds 

as her father held her,

her uncle's beard filled with tears,

her brother's body left blood stains on the tile of the veranda,

the wedding next door turned into a funeral,

and she washed her first body

on the eve of a revolution.

daddy

love to all the fathers. the ones living their lives to make their children's better. working in under florescent lights or dodging bullets under desert sun so the next generation won't suffer. for the ones bringing up the next generation of men and teaching little girls how to love.

this is for the fathers that the world forgot.

the ones who had to bury their children.

the ones dying so their children can live free.

the ones that the law forgets are parents too.

the ones who work and love and love and work.

the ones who kiss their babies and throw them in the air.

the ones who chase their kids through the house with a blanket on their head.

the ones who tell stories. and sing songs. and take pictures.

the ones like my dad.

baba. papa. dad.

is it hard to look like the father that didn't want you?