I'm torn between celebrating and grieving
Eid has come but so have the dead
Happiness is struggling to rise
From the density of sadness

Like the reign of blood in veins
Blood rains over Yemen
A place I was neither born in nor raised
But grew to know about and praised
With words
That could not earn a dime
Still
For every worth of dirt your hands touched
I announced a crime

Speak of love and missing no more
What is love
But a possession
A chance to devour a soul

Speak of death and a need to rest
For love is but a mirage of the mind
A weakness

We fight
In the name of love
For a religion, a country,

We fight
In the name of love
For honour, for shame,
We fight

In the name of love
For family, money, and fame,
We fight

So speak of love and missing no more
For what is love
But a dead man walking

A chance for him to devour your soul

I wonder if we care
Does it actually matter

When a child is broken in two
When his entrails splatter
and there is no glue

I wonder if we care
Does it actually matter

What we view
What we think, feel or do

I wonder if we care
Does it actually matter

Because we turn around
look at ourselves
and forget

you

The night runs out
Colourful dreams wash away
While sleepless horrors commence

You will hate
Till the snowflakes turn red

You will fight
Till the night turns into daylight.

No, it is not the bombs that will lighten up

Your eyes will
When you see
The world speaking
It's earthquake words

The night showers
Children
From the gates of heaven

Their eyes
Looking at you and me

For their mothers

Dig deeper
Until you find

Her coloured scarf
Covered in dust

Face down
With arms
Still covering
Him from the shells

She does not look up

She is already there

I’ve spent minutes and hours of time
Avoiding home
Avoiding blame
Avoiding what brought them shame

I’ve spent days and nights listening to talks of what is and what is not right

I’ve spent years figuring out
What I am
And what I should
And shouldn't be like

I've spent a lifetime understanding the path I see
And if I am able to see what i see
I was blind you see
I couldn't see I was blind
That there was something to see
It was me

And now on this road I walk
With a clear view of what’s underneath

I never want to go blind again
I am determined
Stubborn

But this time with eyes
So let me be
Don't blind me

So I've heard
There’s nothing like grandpas
There’s nothing like grandmas
There’s nothing like aunts, uncles
So I've heard
But I've only heard.

That there’s nothing like brothers,
There’s nothing like feathers
of a bird that ***** it’s wings together
Nothing…

There is nothing
So I’ve heard.

So I’ll tell you what nothing is like

Nothing is like death
Nothing is like the breathe
you take from the dead
Nothing is like the the mould you see
on a rotten bread

I’m not intending to rhyme

It’s the nothing that draws me to write and paint
It’s the nothing that keeps me up at night so late

Less clutter and clamour
Less issues and matters
Less talk and blabber

Nothing is what it’s like
Nothing is nothing to be frank

So the next time you say there’s nothing like…

Consider for a moment those who have lived without.

You speak of death
As if it were
Not flesh disfigured
And soul skinned
From human bones
But a past fact
A present reality
And a future dream

Her pink cheeks
Flushed out of blood,
Her lips a cold blue
Her neck slanting forward sitting on the cold wooden floor
Shivering hands tremble to touch her and wake her
Tears too many to dry

Calling her name
Her children quickly surround her
Each distressed with fear
Their voices trembling too

Is it too late to save her
Have we neglected her suffering
Have we been too blind to see
The life she gave to us with love so gracefully

And i worry

I won't find the words to write
What i saw, heard and felt

And i worry
That others haven't a clue of what is to see, hear and feel

And i worry
With my pencil lying across my bedside table
About what i should fill these white pages with

And i worry
While others only wish for
A pencil
A table
Or white pages
To fill
With their worry


And i worry