Falfafel of those who left

The falafel of those who left
is richer with their loss
than it is with olive oil

I cannot let go

I cannot let go, you tell me
pointing at the photographs
behind where you spend your time
head first in the notes,
I cannot let go, you tell me
of the ghost that was her,
my mother who died in an accident
twenty years ago

girls on the side of the road

To the girls left on the side road

that I cannot help

I cannot even pretend

to know how you feel

Appreciation

Saying words of grace
takes time
to arrive first to the heart
the black hole of all things

Smells like Christmas

It smells like Christmas in my kitchen,
smells like the time I stopped
in the heart of the house

right in the middle like a clot
not moving nor let anyone move
to make Christmas over cold stoves

here is a list of things you need for cake
that serves 6, realistically
even if you are on your own:

* peeled apples
* 3/4 sugar
* flour
* cinnamon
* nutmeg
* salt (to taste)

I stand on a flat corner
kneading the flour
needing a listening ear

I stand in the corner
in my house,
shaking like a belly dancer after a long show
cupping powdered sugar to an empty heart

rain or shine

Why would you think the sunshine is small?

Does the sunshine make you shiver?

does it?

These passing winds are ice-cold.

winds are you,

do they make you shiver still?

This is us,

Shivering come rain or shine

Calamity

There is calm in calamity
the way there's a pip in an olive
lodged right in the middle,
felt at only when bitten into.

open questions to love

Is this punishment
that the way you move
impact my vision, love?

a quick ride

The roller-coaster

tugs so high to sink again 

that's love, I hear you say

an aerial view of loneliness

There you are 

standing tall like an elm 

overseeing the crowds, like from a plane 

an aerial view of loneliness 

Elephants

Nothing more regal than an elephant
another sign for torture,
for others to be happy.

observations

From the sky, it all looks small
especially humans, like tiny ants
the ego dissipates

A wedding, unnecessary

There's an air that surrounds you
when you sit wrapping the night like a shawl

- that there have been silver linings, yours copper
- that there are smiles and expressions of love, yours void
- that there is another way to pick roses, yours is to plant
- that there are memories made between the laughs, your phone saves coversation
- that there is a new beggining

the night, cold wraps itself around your shoulders
when at the wedding you sit to think
of different ways to spell love
without slashing your wrists open by its glass.

Fear and fire

Like a wildfire, it will eat up with its arms
all the sides of yourself you were keeping safe
this fear

a country of 3adi, normal

Adi', is the way we spell normal
like it doesn't hurt to breathe at times
Adi' is the longest wait before going home
not because the traffic is hell but because
the sea of cars isn't moving. Adi, is the youth
wasting hours of their lives struggling to be
clearheaded enough to take a jump. Adi, is a country of normal
where everything and anything is of itself a story
Adi, is the country where death walks hand in hand
with life, like an old bride and a groom.
Adi is the abnormality, of getting used to normal.

if all of this fighting went to rest

If all of this fighting went to rest,
he asks, face twisted like three branches loose
where would we bury newly minted weapons?

one hundred and two years old

one hundred and two years old
we are turned away from the face of the fire

by virtue of one document
oh, how important is paper to this land

taken out of the roots of its olives
splashed with the ink of hundreds tears

black as the day we were signed off
a place for no one, left for everyone

this is the fate of nations
for their kindness, a blow on the head

an increased hundred and two
years of pain washed out with sea-salt.

wearing pain in a disguise

Three blows and a pinch
on the cheek

you still think
your hand is kind

wearing pain in a disguise

Sunday, olives

The ladder positioned between me and the tree

tells a hundred stories 

of running away to hide in branches 

where only the imagination would find me 

scrawling a plan on torn pieces of paper 

pretending its animals skin 

that I am a queen from olden times 

fallen into the recent age by chance 

this is childhood, now older 

with the tree in my hands 

instead of me in hers 

picking its sons and daughters 

how much have you both grown! 

Strike

It is all closed, the storefronts
the streets, all void of people

it is all kept at bay
the cooking, the school-boys running with burdened bags

it is all left behind
the tiresome, slow hours of work

it is all closed off, striking
except the windows to my heart, open.