space & spock
“Homecoming”
When you were fifteen,
your mother mapped out your future
in a little white cup stained with coffee grounds
thick and black like the bottom of a lake.
You scoffed at her superstition;
pushed the butt of your Marlboro Red
deep into the murky sediment
blowing smoke to mix with the heat of the heavy Kuwaiti air.
Even then, you knew you weren’t home.
Even then, you felt the push of wind from the ocean.
Even then, you heard the whisper and rustle of greener grass.
You left at eighteen,
hopping like a frog, one desert to another.
The night lights of Dallas offered you
blondes, blondes, blondes.
You shed the old customs that wrapped around your skin like a death shroud.
Pink Floyd replaced the surahs and beer flowed like Zamzam water;
while you adopted the twangy accent of your new friends.
Even then, you knew you weren’t home.
Even then, you felt the shove of wind from the desert.
Even then, you heard the whisper and rustle of greener grass.
You returned at thirty,
a blonde wife and three daughters in tow.
To Sharjah, close to the sea, in a small apartment above a Chinese restaurant
where dead fish and the yells of sailors on dhows
mixed in with the smoke of your Marlboro Reds.
Your wife cooked beitinjan, mlukhiyya, and mansaf in the tiny kitchen
while the package of coffee your mother sent lay in the freezer.
Even then, you knew you weren’t home.
Even then, you felt the shove of wind from the desert.
Even then, you heard the whisper and rustle of greener grass.
In Sharjah at thirty four,
in the weak dawn hours, you answered a call from Amman.
Packed a hurried bag and went to Jordan
to find your father dying on a hospital bed.
People filled your sister’s small apartment with condolences
and your mother made pots of thick Turkish coffee.
You swallowed your cup whole,
the bitter grounds filling your throat like soil.
You buried your father on a hill in Burqa.
Under an olive tree, you finally wept.
Wept out the push of the ocean.
Wept out the shove of the desert.
Wept out the whisper and the rustle of greener grass.
You had returned to the country of your birth but you knew you would never find home.
——————
Sausan Masoud
editing poems in boyfriend’s flannel while space sleeps on my papers
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Reblogged purely to make Amanda smile.
This is the best thing that was ever made so just turn off the planet now because we can all go home. Thank you, it’s been a great show.
YESSSSSSSSSSS
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This year marks 65 years of Israeli apartheid and expansion of the colonial settler state but also unwavering Palestinian resistance.
During the #Nakba, the Palestinian exodus, more the 780,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. Today there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees, the largest refugee community in the world, living in exile.
Palestine was never “a land without people”, and the people of Palestine will return
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good hair day during finals week
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