Final Sunsets

Here’s the poem I couldn’t write before,

but before I can deceive the world,

I must first find a way to write it.

I’m thinking again about that first

morning flight, traveling to Palestine,

Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and all across Africa.

But then again, how can I travel again?

How can we rise before the sunrise,

when our people have bid farewell to their final sunsets,

locking themselves away in coffins of silence?

Our enemies are thrilled, overjoyed—

their wars are the reason I feel bound to UN’s wheelchair.

Dear letters A to Z, why do our stories lack a plot?

Why are our souls turning to stone in the eyes of strangers?

The sky opens and pours itself into our hearts,

while we open our hands to peace, only to fall bleeding,

betrayed by the silence of an enemy who said nothing.

If we were God’s favorite saints,

we’d be the bloodstained mirror in an abandoned church.

If we were civilian homes,

we’d be the feathers of lovebirds, caged in a dreamless cemetery.

If we love,

we fall broken.

If we own,

we are lost forever.