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?

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.