✊🏻WE✊🏼ARE✊🏽ALL✊🏾EQUAL✊🏿

Help me understand because I don't understand, it's got me questioning' like, "Why?

Just tell me why, tell me am I really different to you or are you the difference that keeps this void between us.

Are we not derived from the same beginning? Are we not derived to the same ending?

Did our ethnicities come with a guide book where complicated combinations are simply too exotic to comprehend?

I stand on a land where all these cultures and religions clash and meet daily and now do you still want to tell me that I’m really different to you.

I’m here in front of you all articulating through the silence. Where’s your devotion? Where’s your devotion, to fracture this never-ending chain of unfair equality?

As Martin Luther King once mentioned, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Well, I have a dream, a dream where this plague will soon have a cure for the state of being equal, in status rights and opportunities.

Before I rage and rant out of passion and before I lay down the historical traumatic facts don’t act like listening is a crime don’t be so blind, don’t be so blind to what tears up our social lives.

So, let me say sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry for the fact that our history is built on mass genocide against our native indigenous people I’m sorry we’ve alienated you stripped your form your rights and treated you differently due to the colour of your skin.

I’m sorry I’m only beginning with general history. Look I know I’m not much of a historian, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the fact that we were built based upon unfair equality

My mother always told me to give back to my community, but how am I meant to give back to a community which is so divided? I don't understand, it's got me questioning' like, "Why? Just tell me why"

I wrote this as I’m trying to pull my head through in hopes that you understand I’m no different to you …

✊🏻WE✊🏼ARE✊🏽ALL✊🏾EQUAL✊🏿

Do you know what hurts? Liking someone you have no chance with. Denying your feelings towards them because it’s stupid to love them. Having your feelings towards them is pointless until all of them come out from hiding when you see them smile and your heart beats so fast you can't even think clearly. That tiny part of you that has hope that only leads you to disappointment. That's what hurts, knowing something has a 99.99% of not working out the way you want it to but having that 00.01% chance it could keeps you dreaming about it and stops you from moving on. That 00.01% keeps you happy because even that 00.01% is everything you want.

See I loved a boy once, and I think I still do. I don’t think I could ever say it to you how much you mean to me. How much I want to be with you. See I’m just the girl from your past and I know you have no future plans that involves me. See for a very long time I thought that I might be over you. For a very long time, I thought that being over someone meant you didn’t love them anymore. But with you, I’m not sure that’s ever going to be true.  

I may not love you the way I used to but I think a part of me will always care for you. I’ll always want you to be happy, even if I’ll be sad in the process. I’ll always smile when someone mentions your name, or I see a picture of you, even if it also makes me crumble. And I’ll always love the memories I have of each other, when we were both crazy for each other, even if those feelings within you are still long gone.

There are days where I don’t miss you. I sigh with relief that the war I was fighting within myself to get through this is over, that I no longer have to cry begging God to help me let go. I smile knowing its not an aching kind of love anymore, but I wish we could’ve worked out. Sometimes I’m grateful you broke my heart because now I’m stronger.

There are days when you are the first thing my mind wonders too. The days I think of scenarios where you’ll come knocking my door to hug me and tell me that you’ll never let me go again. There’re days where I sit with my heart throbbing knowing I’ll never be a part of your family in the way I thought I’d be and building a life with you - by my side.

You will always be my person, but I will move on. It’s a weird anomaly, loving someone with every piece of you but it’s just not enough. It’s a struggle between holding on to what we were and letting go of what we are.

I know I’m not easy to love. I am stubborn and I breakdown constantly wishing I can tell you about my rough past. But I promise to love you. I promise to give you all I possibly can give. I promise to hold and kiss you every chance I get. I promise to show you off to the world because I will truly be the luckiest ******* earth if I have you by my side. I promise to always make sure you are taken care of and I promise to never let you go to bed upset. I promise to give you all of my attention, regardless if I’m out with my friends. I will always put you first and I will always make sure you’re smiling. I promise to give you the world if you promise to stand by my side, no matter how rough things may get. If you love me, I promise to love you unconditionally. Alway.

I haven’t forgotten about you, in fact, when we started talking to each other again I thought it was a sign. I thought maybe God finally answered my prayers. All the begging would be answered. But now I’m not so sure. We are at a good place now but sometimes I wish you were more than just my friend, that you’d be the person I’d spend the rest of my life with. That your eyes that are warm pools of honey bathing in the sunlight will be next to me every day when I wake up. But before I let myself be dragged into that fantasy I pull myself out knowing that I’m just the girl of your past and you will never know how much I’d like to rewrite my wrongs making everything right…

My name is intangible, its recited or sung, a verse from old folk poetry or the beautiful Quran. I’m remembered when a Zajjalin sings, words of poetry, rhythms and feelings. I'm the makeup of things whether suppressive or freeing and the concrete emotions that a poet leaves ringing.

My name is the voices of change in Lebanon’s civil war. A wounded country where the people is its soul. I was the hope and granddaughter my grandfather wished to call. I carry the name proudly waiting for Lebanon’s sun to return home.