An audible present seeps through cracks of time. Entangled, here, the in-between. The concrete of the present, the earth of the past, and the angry rushing footsteps to come. The growing weeds between concrete remind me of a voice daring to speak. Today we stomp our heels to the ground, oscillating left to right, shrugging our shoulders until we return to the land that keeps us fed.

There is no such thing as funerals here. Not that we dont die, but even then we gather, gather, and gather. In displacement we gather, in our camps we are already gathered, in exile we gather, in forced collective amnesia, around our harvest, and our oil. To sift, cook, tend, heal, share, gift, press, breathe, dip, make, birth, part.

We transmute funerals into a celebration of grief. Gathered, we are yet again - a united front. Keepers of the voiceless, we chant. My grandmother hid children who defy the occupiers of our land. Until her bare heart could no longer take it. She ascended from a heavy heart.

Even then in protection we gather. In your prisons we gather! In our old streets of Jerusalem we gather!

So Ahmed, a Gazawi, taught me how to Dabka in diasporic lands, the lands of turtle island. Our heels weaved stories of when our ancestors plowed the earth for our baladi seeds and homes. Abu Samra, Jadu’i, faqoos, yaqteen.

Ahmad loved the sound that our heels make as they shook the ground. Shook this world made of concrete. The sound of abolition. His fierce legs broke open the ground we stood on, birthed the unthinkable. Collapsed this dying colonial rule. Splintered into a thousand faltered pieces. Our feet erupt this eroding colonial rule.

In between their splintered settlers, we gathered for protection in our streets. These borders found our feet as we sang, climbed, and yelled.

Down with your geographies! Down with your maps! Down with your tanks! Down with your prisons! Gathered, the jissir was defied. Outstripped.

In our gathering - we transcend your borders. In our gathering, we are borderless.

Today we stomp our heels to the ground, oscillating left to right, shrugging our shoulders until we return to the land that keeps us fed.

It is not growing.

I left it for days to bake under Amman’s soaring sun.

It burns and burns with no remorse.

Why did I ever expect the sun to die so soon?

I anticipate grief. It is easier.

Because anger is easy.

I un-grow seeds.

I save them, in case, I can’t stay here.

Where the birds sing,

And people perfect silence.

I water them when I remember care.

When it doesn’t feel so impossible.

I have a graveyard of seeds,

And the rest are in my pocket.

In case, I can’t stay here.

This clay soil asked for ascension.

Even the land needs to breathe.

Because, even the land, can’t stay here.

And in her ask, casualties emerged.

Like the undying sun, she rises.

Let the chamomile die -

Gifts for your singing birds.

Spoiled in the richness of this land.

While people look for life elsewhere.

Ascension, diaspora, alcohol, smoke, and surreal screens.

What if the chamomile speaks?

Would she call on me?

Would she speak up and revolt against me?

Demand for bread and water.

A united front with the skies.

Would the sky revolt too?

Demanding clouds to gather - to rain down

And water the chamomile I’ve killed?

I am no god.

But I killed her, when I could have watered her.

Down with this eroding human!

Where is the one that cares?

Whose heart longed for the cool wet earth,

Not this smoke filled hot air.

Its not growing, I thought.

In her death, I unlearned judgement.

I put my mirror away.

No need to remind the rest of my chamomile what I’ve done.

Re-learned forgiveness,

In search for the jissir to love.

i am not here to undo you. i’d rather be swallowed whole by this broken world.

i am not here.

simply.

this body has parted too many loved ones, unloved ones, beloved ones, could-not-love-me- proper ones, said-they-are-family ones, said they-are-blood ones,

i am not here.

simply.

this body has been oscillating since its deep activation of anxiety.

simply.

now, i am here.

body left blank, left unread, left unnoticed, unloved, unseen, seen, cleaned, weaved, leaned on, body left, body left, body left, left for death, left for the non-life, left for the dirt

the dirt

simply is here

is alive

body winding down, soaring, burning over and over

body found the jissir, and said

i no longer want to be here.

body found body and said we can breathe there.

i’d like to be there.

said-body, so called ‘me’

astonishes me, brews tea, and leaves me on the stove to burn

this body here, left, left, left,

body here turns

body glitches and manages to escape

a fugitive waiting on this jissir to love

and I’d lie if I said I don’t miss your scent.

the lines by the ends of your eyes

that curl with your lashes.

i don’t wear your sweater, im scared it’ll start to smell like me,

and thats not who I miss right now.

you stole all my words

left me in my own worlds

kept me looking for lost languages

ones I didn’t need

ones I didn’t think are here

ones gone extinct

Jissir exists when there is

separation

distance

too much or too little time

a breaking

presence

absence

love

Jissir exists when

your heart is looking for an answer

but the Jissir in Amman is too crowded for your big emotions and long-winded thoughts

Jissir exists when there is

a crossing

a border

a checkpoint

to greet

to part

to pass

to let go

Jissir is the lines that frame your smiling eyes

Jissir is the words you forget to say

Jissir is the love you poured anyway

Jissir is the empty tank driving on fast

Jissir are the tears you let go and kept inside

Jissir is the smell of our sweaty bodies

Jissir is your hand next to mine

Jissir is the moments you can no longer witness

Jissir is the feeling of your heart falling piece by piece silently in a full house

Jissir are the tears clogging up your throat

Jissir is not me missing your scent.

that is

the opposite

of jissir.

Jissir is closeness.

and right now, you have never been farther.

Jissir exiles

& jissir brings me home

so.

here I am.

naked.

not looking for an answer.

not looking for a question, either.

lost.

here I am, lost.

I always found that ironic -

to say, oh I finally found myself…

I am lost.

im - i’m - i am - really trying to find

the pieces you left inside my body

have you ever - have you ever - have you ever shattered so silently

you left it all inside your body

in deep divine

i find a hopeful gut

it pours and

pours

and pours

spills through my pores

I forgot - I for got - I for go t

how to

to con nect

i let my memories starve

and i left my fingers to rot inside the earth’s body

trying to resurrect practices

left unsaid

left untold

and i waited for my love to take its first breath

only cries were present

suffered at separation

at mishandling

i let my darkness mingle with light

maybe, I thought, light can learn a few things.

i wandered through my body

this present absence

now tangible.

i let silence dig its graves in my bones

i’ve never been more quiet

than when i say goodbye.

i’ve never been more quiet,

even anger knocked first before it startled in

clumsy and noisy,

i could no longer sit

my lower back revolted and asked for air

i dug more graves

in my garden

and in my body

an archive of sorts

a museum of transitioned souls

a museum of transitioned moments

of memories

i let starve

now objects of my own demise

i thought, if they starve, maybe, i no longer can forget

and no longer remember

maybe here, i just am what rots with the earth

what wakes at dawn

what transitions

maybe here, i am not death, i am not life

maybe here, i am non-life**

**in a conversation with Dr. Shiera Malik who shared with me “Geontologies: A requiem to late liberalism” by Elizabeth A. Povinelli

born between binds

before bender birds

bought time

and bent bones

been here before

cornered between brittle bread

and blue skies

banal bodies

begging to be-loved

broke down

in rainy streets

bent knees begging a black sky

for salvation for freedom

banned bodies

like the winter sky

pale

and blue

bold bones bright and crimson

full of life

unlike these cold kept streets

our bodies spilled secrets

our minds forgot to keep

now we bite our fingers to sleep

hoping we become the bender birds

that roam so freely between occupied lands

and skies.

skies expanded

birthed an uprising

unleashed our kids from their shackled imagination

& built an empire of freedom fighters

grief breathes

grief is unwelcomed rest

potential non-life

how trees arch to meet in the middle of a shaded street

grief exiles me

holds me by the borders

and reminds me

i am not from here.

grief feels like home.

a really hot soup

that i cannot have just yet.

grief paints me red

and the world calls me fragile.

grief is that bitter taste after a sweet one.

grief is unwanted needed rest.

grief is allowing yourself open

grief is checkpoints across my land.

grief is feeling like every word i right is somehow wrong.

grief is when my own language cannot help me express.

grief is learning that disconnection is man-made.

and if you decide

to deny your truth

today

let it be gentle

on a body that

has danced with

suicide

let it be as graceful

as your skin healing

open scars.

if you decide to

deny your truth

at least dress

your eyes in

compassion

and let your lie

run naked

to a stream

of river

let it bathe

with forgiveness

until its tender enough

for release —

if you decide to welcome

back what doesn't align with your truth–

ask it where its been; why its here.

if you decide to deny

your truth

today –

ask it where its going; why its leaving.

open your fierce heart

and return to love

until you learn how to tend to it everyday

until you find love everywhere–

maybe then

on that day

you no longer have to find someone to love.

instead you find love.

so today, if you decide

to deny your

truth –

i am sorry

we live in a world

where there is only

room for patriarchy & its myths.

i hope wherever your truth is

that its welcomed home

with love & saged tea.

peoples stories on amman’s stones. pockets of resistance and fractals of hope. we can shine in fractals. i am learning that you can still be held even if you are broken or angry. i am learning that it hurts more to leave those broken pieces unloved. i am not here to romanticize amman’s open wound filed with displaced families. i am here to romanticize peoples voices. to love them. these pockets of resistance empower me. expand what i thought was possible. you have dreamers jordan. i hope you embrace them and not dress them with collective amnesia you call a border. this generation is dreaming. being. human. producing creatively. breaking bread & binaries. are you ready for this feast? because people are hungry. a seat for you. & a seat for our ancestors.

and this is why

every living thing that

opens up is

beautiful , complex, and carries layers of life:

flowers,

trees that tend to their rings,

the sky after winter solstice,

the soil as it introduces stem to roots,

pomegranates,

oranges,

kastana,

my ancestors speak when i listen differently,

books,

the qur'an,

my mother's dua'a,

your eyes after you've shed some tears,

my heart even as i ache,

my womb .. to give or take life,

our palms .. to no longer fear,

our feet as we talk,

our lips to meet in dance,

and our lips that bloom in our garden no matter the weather,

our hips to sway, lay , and rest,

dreams where we met,

valleys where we married the earth,

deserts where we third wheeled with the sun and its sand,

sink holes in the dead sea,

or amman even when its full of people with no bread.

all.my.dying.parts

spill

like fugitives -

they are now free

of my torment.

have.they.kept.me.alive?

or did their freedom breathe life into them?

my.dying.parts

spill

&teach me

how to breathe life in my darkest corners.

how to alchemize

my paranoia pledges

and spills over my sharpest edges,

i build worlds

&wonder if they keep me

or free me

أضيع بين الكلمات كموج أريد التحكم به

أفكاري ترقص و تتوه بين الموج والسماء

مرةً تعد السمك وتنسى اسمه

ومرةً مع الغيوم تسير وتصطدم في شحون غيوم أخرى

تأشري على الصفحة

أستيقظ من محاولاتي الفاشلة

لفهم لغتي - لغتي المفترض ان تكون لغتي الأم

فأنت يا أمي

لا طعتني، بل تهديني لغةٌ منعشة ومؤلمة وغنية في قصص أراضينا وأصلنا وغير أصلنا

فأنت يا أمي

معجمي الذي لا ينسى أي كلمة

تخلقي حياة لكل كلمة اسئلك عنها

لا داعي للتفكير - فالجواب لكل معنى كلمة على طرف قلبك

تجبي بسرور وابتسامة

عيونك تدفق وقلبك يكبر

اذ تسردي لي قصة معنى الكلمة وجذرها

تماما كذلك في معدلاتي التافهة

ليس كل مرة نجد اجابة، بل معنى

وتذكريني في أهمية حبي للأشغال المتمردة والتافهة والمهمة وأحيانًا غريبة

انت معجم حي

يحب الأمل، والعودة للأساس

للجذر.

لن أتوقع في حياتي أن أحب معجمٍ.

كنت اعتبره وسيلة أو شيء يساعدني وفقط

جئت انت

وقلبت المعاجم الذي حوشتهم بعد كل سنة من عمري

أدركت منك، يا امي، ان للكلمة حياةٌ كاملة.

ليس انها حيا ففقط

وأنها مليئة بالتاريخ…

بل أنها مليئة في التخيل واسقاط الناقد الذي يرافقني اين ما كنت

ان كل كلمةٍ لها احتملات كثيرة

ومستقبل، كما شئت أو كما هي أرادت

تنبهني أن الكلمة لا تحب من يتحكم بها

دعها تقوم بما هي تحب

انت المعجم الذي يعلمني الصبر ولغتي الأم

الذي يكسر مخاوفي ويستبدلها بفضول للغة أحبها دون ان اعرفها تماما

وأوقات اسئلك: يما شو معنى….

فتكرري لي الكلمة على أساس أن أفهمها

وتوقفي عملك حتى تكرري لي الكلمة التى سألتك عنها!

ارى انك بدأت بأن تتمسكي في الكلمة بقسوة

وأتسائل: ما الذي تحاول ان تقوله؟

انسى الكلمة وأركز على حدتك

هذه محاولة بكلمات بسيطة

أعبر فيها امتناني لمعجم كسر حواجز تعلم لغتي

أرى كيف كل كلمة لها مكان

لا يصعب عليكي ان تجدي لها مقام

لا للضرورة ان تنثري ذكرياتك وملفات مغبرة أو لوحات معلقة

وانت ليست حذرة بين كلماتك، بل ترقصي على أطراف رجليك للكلمة المناسبة بكل خفية

انت يا امي، معجم عافي

وحاد في بعض الاوقات

اتمنى ان تسامحيني على صراحتي

وكلماتي البسيطة

انا في بداية طريقي لأمي الثانية -

لغتي العربية،

التي تكركب يومي أوقات أو تتحول الى جسر للإحتملات