We Are More: Two Poems
CONFESSION Ⅰ
I am terrified
of long sentences
and if you meet me perhaps you’ll notice
how poetic
my brevity can be when mostly it is fear of saying too much
that cripples me
lest you sense that behind an eloquent voice
is one always weeping and too long a list
of what’s wrong in the world
it’s funny
people praise me for vulnerability they don’t know I’ve put my own soul on the shelf in my closet I cannot reach
one time a lady said do you sell your confidence to speak in bottles
I smiled and went home
to someone she has never met
how could she when before I walk through a door
I hang myself on the frame
she’ll never know the turmoil within
or how too small a word like father or war pushes me
from a mountain top
downward
at least
I know what’s wrong
and what parts of me
I lock up
people spend their entire lives spilling over each other searching for a container big enough for their fragments I’m lucky at least I’ll spend mine searching for the key
so what
you don’t know everything about me
no one even knows everything about themselves
if we did
mirrors
wouldn’t have been invented
and frankly
it’s kind of useless
to pretend more words or tears would heal what cannot be changed but I promise
in the name of trying
I’ll keep at it until something in me leaks
and maybe just maybe I’ll run out of grief
before I do ink or air
CONFESSION II
Years after we escaped the war
we spotted our own chairs sofas loveseats on TV
while watching a series my mother screamed over ads and the actors’ voices
they were ours
from when my grandfather won a hotel auction decades ago
giant walnut wood chairs engraved by hand
there was no mistaking
the intricate mother of pearl inlays from afar or
your biggest fear
finding you wherever you are
who knew family treasures haunt and not just in nightmares
my mother screamed over ads and the actors’ voices
who needs made-up tales when reality
is drama and horror
enough
I can’t imagine what it’s like playing a character
in a costume behind a voice on a chair stolen and sold
God knows how many times over we asked our neighbors they said yes they said they saw they said people we know were breaking in
loading trucks’ worth of money and memories
our building now a museum
for what isn’t there
and open from both ends
one by hungry hands
another by bombs
slipping down airplanes
like sheer stockings
I imagine it a face our building
stretched skin and without features
by the last episode
we had found old albums looked through flip-phones
realized those chairs they weren’t exactly exactly ours
but in our minds
they’ll always be
**
Logo by Mina M. Jafari
Column artwork by Abdel Morched.
***
We Are More is an inclusive space for SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) and SWANA diaspora writers to tell our stories, our way. Curated by Michelle Zamanian, this new column seeks to disrupt the media’s negative and stereotypical narratives by creating a consistent platform to be heard, outside of and beyond the waxing and waning interest of the news cycle. We’ll publish creative nonfiction, graphic essays, fiction, poetry, and interviews by SWANA writers on a wide variety of subject matter.