Rifqa

by Mohammed El-Kurd

There is what words can do, and there is what is beneath the words: the fire and fury of what willed them into existence. There is what we hope they will do, and there is what they have actually done. Mohammed writing from the front lines of occupied Palestine is an action, a doing, a done.

Solidarity is a feeling and a doing. It is a series of choices we make with one another. It can only be felt. It cannot be contrived or manipulated. Solidarity is not just about our shared pain or struggle but also, most importantly, about our shared joy, visions, and dreams. It is an energetic force and a resounding love.

We cannot afford to be silent.

The freest people on earth are not controlled by hatred or fear but moved by love and truth. We are more than what was done to us; we are who we’ve become in spite of it all.

These words remind me that home is a series of shared memories, not brick and mortar. Home is where we go to remember and revisit who we’ve always been. Mohammed El-Kurd’s poetry is a home returned to us. His poems call us home.

a zebra at the mercy of a jury of hyenas.

My mother has always said: “The most tragic of disasters are those that cause laughter.”

a few bodies shot, dead—died numbers in a headline.

Birth lasts longer than death. In Palestine death is sudden, instant, constant, happens in between breaths.

Home in my memory is a green, worn-out couch and my grandmother in every poem: every jasmine picked off the backlash, every backlash picked off the tear gas, and tear gas healed with yogurt and onions, with resilience, with women chanting, drumming on pots and pans with goddamns and hasbiyallahs. They work tanks, we know stones.

I fluctuated between hatred and adoration, stacking and hoarding Darwish’s reasons to live sometimesbelieving them, sometimes dipping my bread in indulgence, knowing a child is breadless, in Khan Yunis, dipped in a roof’s rubble …

If you ask me where I’m from it’s not a one-word answer. Be prepared seated, sober, geared up. If hearing about a world other than yours makes you uncomfortable, drink the sea, cut off your ears, blow another bubble to bubble your bubble and the pretense. Blow up another town of bodies in the name of fear.

This is why we dance: My father told me: “Anger is a luxury we cannot afford.” Be composed, calm, still—laugh when they ask you, smile whe...

This is why we dance: If I speak, I’m dangerous. You open your mouth, raise your eyebrows. You point your fingers. This is why we dance: We have wounded feet but the rhythm remains, no matter the adjectives on my shoulders. This is why we dance: Because screami...

You are the prisoner and you are the cell.

constant Nakbas tragedy pillowed and bedroomed made normal: mornings of mourning on a breakfast table, olives za’atar tomatoes and cucumber tragedy tear gas and tea

In Jerusalem, every footstep is a grave.

Separation is like unmaking love ungluing names to places undoing God.

A soldier as old as a leaf born yesterday pulls a trigger on a woman older than his heritage.

Here, every footstep is a grave, every grandmother is a Jerusalem.

In my lonely I spend time shoving ghosts off of balconies. I go to war in a book.

They tell us to taunt tanks with resumés not rocks.

because the screams make me nostalgic: I almost don’t fear the sirens.

The morning of a red-skied May1948. Could’ve beentoday.

The people of Haifa left. Some fled after news some stayed, gave coffee to massacre. Somewalked a straight line into the sea back to their city refused to be martyred refused to exit.

She left poetry. What I writeis an almost. I writean attempt.

the Jordanian governmentgrandma a lucky refugeegrew vines of roses around the house; this time the roses had thorns just in case.

Invaderscame back once again, claimed the land withfists and fireexcusesbeliefs of the chosen and the promised as if God is a real-estate agent.

I cried—not for the house but for the memories I could have had inside it.

With every lid closed Rifqa went to her house saw nothing in the gray of her eyes said, Let’s say it was devoured by the sea. Don’t worryit will wash ashore. “No matter how deep it drowns, the truth always washes ashore.” She prays to her refuged God. Nowadays she walks fragile, so unlike the past that she battled, so unlike the past nameless faces remembered on her wrinkled face. They tell the storyof the particular events: organized, plural, ongoing.

What do you do when your destiny is predetermined?

Do not reconcile even if they gift you gold. If I were to gouge out your eyes and place gems in their place would you still see? —Amal Dunqul

It’s the same killing everywhere. Seventy-some years later we haven’t lived a day.

Violence is not children taking on dragons.

Solidarity often is a refuted revolution.

People who give excuses for executions fear the rifle more than they fear the reason.

When they ask me next time, I’ll say God held her hand.

Was it because our cemeteries need cemeteries and our tombstones need homes?

Here, we know two suns: earth’s friend and white phosphorus. Here, we know two things: death and the few breaths before it. What do you say to children for whom the Red Sea doesn’t part?

A woman tells him a pen is a sword. What’s a pen to a rifle? Another fed him a sonnet. If Shakespeare was from here he wouldn’t be writing.

What is fear to the ferocious?

Math My homeland tunnels itself in an escape to chosen exile. Blood doesn’t wash away despite the faucets despite the color of washing.

Which me will survive all these liberations?

We exit the bus, walking toward the military barrier. Under occupation, walking feels barefoot. Here, walking feels like attempting to run in water.

There is a new planet in her stomach that feels like swallowing watermelons whole.

There is no life without pushing, no life in siege.

I’ve been meaning to eat today but I spent a thousand mornings since sunrise insisting upon my integrity.

A reporter asks if I believe in violence. Irony is a constant guest. What’s that got to do with anything? Another asks what’s a holiday like in a tent? Who gives a fuck about Christmas and decorations? Do I believe in violence? Well I don’t believe in violation.

My teenage years forced me to walksix inches shorter Shrunk myself to shrink the commentsExisted without space Thereisnotmuch else I’d like to share about my adolescence I’m bored with the metaphorsChildren threw stones Sirens were lullabies / fireworks; bombsand we were sick of it

I watch this from my couch, crocheting myself a noose.