There in the mirror,
My jaw dropped from the terror
Of what I ' ve become

For your birthday this year
I bought you a frame
And put in it a thing
From our last holiday.

I wrote the year in the corner,
See? Just through the glass.
So you'd always remember
That moment together, the two of us.

On the back of the mount
I wrote my love declaration.
Lucid and bold,
So unlike my stifled diction.

Shocked, I replaced
The chipboard backing.
Honest words hidden,
Exhausted, mind rumbling.

And there it will stand
On your shelf quite plainly.
My confession laid bare,
For you to see, daily.

Everyone’s sleepwalking through city square
It’s twelve fifty seven
And seventy families have bled black against Israel’s rockets

Come Sunday morning
The drunks in my hometown
Will be too hungover to recognise their own faces
While Palestinians across the world
Will have to sort through the bones of dead relatives

This country was built on colonial empathy
Freedom from suffering through self-absorbed apathy

We’re all sewn to our seats
Caring for nothing