Giving way...

'Or being hated, don’t give way to hating'- Rudyard Kipling

Run from the nearest place on the hills into the desert
but do not ask for Tiresias to predict rain
force an oracle when he is half-made of a snake

snakes make of the desert a home,
it is always like that, the cure is in the belly
of monsters

the monsters decide who lives
who dies, it is not up to God
anymore, decision-making is entirely human

made plausible before the first moon of the new month
a month left to God where all the devils are locked
but a few had gone astray, like normal angels would

in El-Manya you would hold a gun in your right hand
a flyer in your left, at arm's length,
pray before you act, not act and pray for forgiveness

in El-Manya, you would hold a gun in your right hand,
a flyer in the left, does not ask for forgiveness
the precision of a shot on a six year old's neck

heroic, the act of blood over bravery
made to receive
payment in ripe blood

Go tell the mothers of the children
who receive coffins instead of flowers
to grieve silently

between the afternoon meal and the dawn's call for prayer
sorrow has to wait until the word of God
settles among us

run from fear and contain another
that you are slotted 'interesting' in airports
at the sidelines of conversations, slaughtered for following

an ideal, a difference, a belief
but this is not how I was raised
not how I would expect;

a bullet from a stranger whose mother fed from my mother's
orchard, who with prayer I had showered
with love I had practiced, turning both my cheeks

where my lips caught the blow
where a son of mine died because he obtained my last name
because our names are kofor, blasphemy

blasphemy is the other side of love
where I put you down, in the name of the one who reigns
the skies, where I break your back and wish you a speedy recovery

blasphemy is when my prayer is without direction
but with aim, blasphemy is when in El-Manya
going to God means a death

of little flowers left, untended to,
where children are not sent to play or arrive at church
but later in the day, the blasphemous
stiff, yet white, like angels
fallen in the wide deserts of the pharaohs.