To me eternity lies in thy eyes,
and thy rejection my demise.
If so but accept and heal me likewise;
whilst shun and stab my sore heart, otherwise.
Thou hath always been to me a surprise;
Though a doubtful, but sparkling surprise,
So any dejection of thine shall be odd,
And a thousand times bitterer than a cold rapid retort;
For thou art pure; and sometimes too pure and fine
As how thy immortal soul stayest still, and growest not old
And in toughness and roughness is to remain,
So long as thy dried flesh shall age, and afford;
And with such songs so prolific as prayers
By friendly laudations like bewitching storms
Thou shall forever stay, and newer grow fader
And in such coldness thou shall offer me warmth;
Beside yon raging fire, and about thy manly arms,
Thou shalt but lull and cradle me like a baby-
until sleep comes and whispers dreams onto me,
Thou shalt be far more tender and smart-
Unlike that ungrateful preceding heart,
Which claimed to be civil, but uncivil,
United but then left my unsuspecting heart apart;
So unlike thee, who is but a smart little devil
Thou who earnestly tempted my soul, and lured my blood
Thou returned my blushes, and caught away my heart
Ah, and now-whenever I thinkest of thee,
All pain and gloom shall revert to oneness,
But how still I know not, as whose days remain but a mystery
For everything in which is at times barren and colourless;
But when alive, they are just as simple
as those brief dreams of thine and mine,
With a love but too sufficient, majestic and ample
Delicately shall they turn troubled and unseen,
But caring and healing and blinding and shaking,
taking turns like oceanic birds which go about
swimming and singing and strumming and swinging,
like a painting of prettily sure clarity-but unseen,
or perhaps a pair of loving, yet unforgettable winds.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
Ah, thee! And betwixt thy gaze,
All fictitious sunsets shalt perhaps become wet-
Just like those azure spirits in thy fair eyes,
Sometimes too indignant but unquestioning,
and too pure-as to whom even the Devil hath no lies;
To thee only, to whom this enduring love is ever assigned,
And forever, even its temptation be mine, and only mine,
Like unforgivable sins, which are sadly left unatoned
In its eternity standing still like a statue;
beside its wrathed, and bloodied howling stone
And to thee merely, to whom this impaired heart shall ever return,
As it now does, with cries and blows that makest my heart churn
And canst wait not 'till the morn, for on morns only,
thou shalt creepest down the stairs, and stareth onto me,
Often with eyes full of questions;
Questions that thou art too bashful to reflect,
So that turn themselves later on, into emotions,
Which withereth and dieth days after, of doom and neglect.
Ah, but still I loveth thee!
For this regret makest me but loveth thee more and more,
and urge my soul greater, to loveth thee better-than ever before.
For 'tis thee who yet stills my cry, and silences my wrath;
The one who kills my death, and reawakens my breath.
Thou on whom my love shall be delightfully poured,
A love as amiable as the one I hold for dearest Lord,
A love for thee, for only thee in whom I'th found comfort,
A comfort that is holier than any heaven, or even His very own divine abode;
Thou art holier than the untouched swaying grass outside,
Which is green, with greenness so handy and indulgent to every sight,
Thou who art madder than madness itself,
But upon Friday eves, makest my joy even merrier,
And far livelier-than any flailing droplet of rain
Showering this earth's clustered soil out there,
Which does neither soften nor flit away my pain
But makest it even worse, as if God Himself shan't solicit, nor care
Like any other hostile love, which thou might kindly find, every where.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
In my mind thou art the lost eternity itself,
And by its proud self, thou art still even grander,
For thou makest silence not any more silence,
but joy, in return, even a greater joy.
Ah, thee, thou who the painter of my day,
and the writer of my blooming night.
Thou who art the poet of my past,
and the words of my courteous present.
Thou shall ******* flirty orange blossoms,
And cherish its virtue, which strives and lives
As a most sumptuous, and palpable gift-
Until the knocking of this year's gentle autumn.
Ah! Virtue, virtue, o virtue-whose soul always be
a charm, and indeed a very generous charm-
to my harmonious, though melancholy, *****.
Ah, thee; o lost darling-my lost darling of all awesome day and night,
My lost darling before starlight, and upon the pallid moonlight,
My lost darling above the reach of my sight, and height;
Thou art still a song-to my now tuneless leaves,
and a melody to their bottomless graves,
Thou shalt be a cure to their ill harmony;
Thou art their long-betrayed melody.
And even, thou art the spring
my dying flowers needst to taste,
fpr being with thee produces no haste;
and or whom nothing is neither early, nor late;
And whenst there be no fate, thou shalt be
yon ever consuming fate itself-
And by our inane eyes, thou shalt makest it
but adorable and all the way strong,
For thou, as thou now do, nurture it better
than all the other graciousness among;
Thou art the promise it hath hitherto liked; but just
shyly-and justly refuted, for the bareness of pride,
and often inglorious resistance-all along.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
Ah, thee! Even in undurable haste, thou art still like a butterfly,
fast and rapid flowing about the earth and into the sky;
Thou who art grateful not for this earth's soil;
Thou who saith 'tis only the sky that canst make thou feel.
Thou who cannot sit, thou cannot lay,
but on whose lanes thou always art secure,
as though from now thou shalt live too long
And belong to this rigorous earth
to whom our mortal souls do not belong.
And as to its vigour, death cannot be delayed,
and words of deadness shalt fast always, be said.
Ah, yet but again, I cannot simply be wrong;
for thou art immortal, immortal, and immortal;
To death thou art but too insipid and loyal;
that willing it not be, to take thy soul into its mourning,
and awkward prayers so scornful and worrying.
Thou who needst not be afraid of death;
for breath shalt never leave thee, and thou shan't breath.
Unsaid poems of thine are thus never to remaineth unspoken,
and far more and more thoughts shalt be perfectly carved, and uttered;
Unlike mine; whose several mortal thoughts shalt be silenced, and unknown
And after years passed my name shalt be forgotten, and my poems altered.
But thou! By any earth, and any of its due shape-thou shalt never be defaced,
and whose thoughts shalt never, even only once-be rephrased,
for thou art immortal, and for decades undying shalt be so;
And to life thou remaineth shalt remain chaste, and undetached;
as the divine wholeness whenst 'tis all slumped and wretched,
and white in unsoiled finery, whenst all goes to dirt and waste;
For grossness shalt escape thee, and stains couldst still, not thee fetch.
To every purity thou shalt thus be the best young match;
Ah, just like my mind shalt ever want thee to be;
but thou art missing from my sight-ah, as thou art not here!
Our paths are far whenst they are but near,
and which fact fillest me still, with dawning dread and fear
Unfortunately, as in this poem, my words not every heart shalt hear;
And to my writings doth I ever patiently retreat, the one,
and one only; whom to my conscience so dear.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And just to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
How fate but still made us here and meet,
That clue shall never makest me blind, and forget!
Now blighted I am, by dire ungladness and regret,
for having abhorred, and slighting thee too much!
For should I still cherish thee before my mortal death,
and be bitter and testy not; much less grim or harsh.
For fate is what fate is, as how love is just it looks;
and God's doings cannot be wrong; and true and faithful
as words I found crafted, and deciphered in old books.
Ah, and God's blessings are to arriveth in time,
and to taste whose due I indeed needst to be patient.
Be patient t'wards the love on which I climb,
ah, as for me-and whenst the right time cometh-
thou shalt be my sole wealth; so dear and sufficient!
And so for thee, no matter how thou hath my heart now torn,
Still I canst, and shalt reward thee not-with scorn;
for thou art my fate, my path, and my salved destiny;
For of which I am assured, definite, and convinced-
with all my degrees of humble pride, and vivid certainty-
Ah, darling, and thou art my humbleness, but also too many a time-my vanity;
For whom I shan't go and venture but anywhere-
As long as thou stayest and last-verily and for yon whole eternity, by me.

I want to know what kind of man you are beneath
the surface.
I want to understand what makes your heart beat faster
and what you love. What makes you mad, and why it has
that power over you.
I want to learn if your anger is hot and quick like mine, or
a lingering coldness that freezes those who invoke your
wrath. Do you forgive them when the red mist subsides,
or do you hold a grudge through all of eternity?
I wish I could know how you see me through those quiet
eyes of yours. I want you to tell me if you long to stroke
my hair as we drift off to sleep, or if it’s my curves that
your hands ache for. I wonder if you would message me
goodnight before bed, so that I would never close my eyes
without knowing that I was loved. Perhaps you would
expect my heart to know that already, simply by the way
your face lights up at the sight of mine.
What do you dream of when you close your eyes? Do you
sleep peacefully until the light dapples your skin through
the blinds, or do the tigers prowl around your head,
leaving you shivering in fear in the darkness?
When you are lonely, do you ever think about my smile, or
the way that I always know how to still the demons that
scream inside you? I wonder if I am still vivid in your
awareness, or a distant memory now; a spectre bathed in
the gentle lustre of nostalgia.
Do you chase sunsets or sunrises? I love both. Does the
promise of a shimmering new dawn appeal to you more
than the glow of another day closing in a riot of colour? I
wonder where peace finds you. Will you drink hot tea with
me as the sun blazes through the horizon, reminding us
of the fleeting nature of this life? I think I would like that.
I want to learn if you prefer the bright crackle of a
burning log fire, snuggled up in blankets against the cold,
or the way that the sun plays upon warm limbs, making
them glow golden in the afternoon light. Is it summer that
brings a smile to those lips I covet, or would you
rather turn your face up to taste the snowflakes as they
fall?
I watch to see if you curse the fact that you cannot get to
work in the snow, or if you roll up your sleeves joyfully to
build a snowman. And if you do, I notice whether you give
him a stone mouth so that he might smile upon the
children that wave as they pass him by.
Do you ever fantasise about losing yourself, out there, in
the world? Do you seek the quiet solitude of a wooden log
cabin on the edge of a lake, or do you prefer the lights
and glamour of cocktail dresses in a fancy room full of
raucous laughter?Where do you want to go? What do you
want to see?
Do you hear it when adventure calls out your name and
more importantly, do you answer?
I want to know where you hide, when the world becomes
too much to bear.
Where do you take your freedom?
Is there space for another in your haven, or can I follow
you only so far, then settle patiently to await your return
to me; the reunion all the sweeter for your absence.
See, I wanna know if you have hurt people. Did their tears
rain on your heart, each drop a sharp stinging torment? I
try to imagine if you wear a mask of hardness in the face
of another’s pain, or if you are gentle as you ask for
forgiveness. Do you bleed through another’s wounds?
Can you?
Tell me how you have broken someone you loved, and
whether you were able to fix them again. Did they love
you still when the pieces were put back together? What
horrors live in the bleakest corners of your soul? What do
you think about when you go there?
I want to know the very worst of you.
Share with me the music that plays in your heart, and
whether you dance to the beat of your own drum.
Show me the colour of your love. If you could splash its
brightness onto a waiting canvas, would it burn with
passionate reds and oranges, or would it run still and
strong in a cool turquoise calm?
Tell me if you kiss softly, your lips singing mine a gentle
lullaby, or whether they would rage intently,
scorching new pathways to my heart with a desire that
refuses be stilled. I want to feel it either way.
Show me if you want a sweet girl, or a ***** one. Or a
little of each. What makes you cry out in ecstasy? Is it a
woman that makes you laugh until your stomach hurts, or
one whose beauty takes your breath away with a single
look? Do you look for the quirky ones, perhaps? The ones
who are too easily overlooked, the hidden treasures?
Tell me, would you risk it all for love? Would you fight for
what you truly want, or would you let it slip away into
nothing, never knowing what might have been, because
you never told her that your heart beat only for her? Did
you ever realise she was waiting for you to fight for her?
Will you watch someone else love her because you were
too afraid to be vulnerable with her?
Will you settle for next best, the girl you could maybe
grow to love someday, instead of the one that haunts your
thoughts today? Is that enough for you? Maybe it is.
Could you live with yourself knowing that she got away?
Tell me about a time that you cried until you couldn’t
breathe anymore. Or where you lived through a day where
you prayed for the sweet release of death. Did you make
it through? I have been there. Has your heart been broken
into a million tiny pieces and, if it has, has it made you
hard? Or are you are still open to the beauty that the
world holds for you?
Show me your pain and I will show you mine. I hope it
does not scare you. It has helped me to grow.
I want to know if you talk to the glittering stars above us,
and which one is special to you. What do you think
happens when we die? Do we join their shining ranks in
heaven or is there nothing left for us? Are you afraid of
death? I am. Will you hold my hand if I leave you first? If
you whisper to me that love knows no boundaries, not
even death, will you mean it?
Tell me about your childhood. I want to know the way
your mother’s hair smelled when you crawled exhausted
into her lap, and the way your bedroom looked when you
were 10. Did your father cry when you curled a tiny fist
around his finger for the very first time? I bet he did. I
want to know all the people that you have loved
throughout your life, so that I might love them through
you and with you.
Do you write? Do you draw? I want to know whether you
ache to capture my face with your pencil, preserving the
wonder that lingers softly there. Do you like to express
yourself through words, or action best? Will your hands
illustrate your story as you speak and will I know that you
are lying from the way your lips tremble gently as the
words tumble guiltily from them?
What is your favourite book? Explain to me why it
enraptures you so. Please? It tells me a lot about you. I
love the way people cry when their favourite character
breaks their heart, as though they are an old friend to be
adored. Who is yours? I will seek them out and befriend
them to understand why they have moved you so much.
Lend me your secrets. I’ll keep them safe and I’ll return
them when my picture of you is complete. Whisper into
my ear so that only us two may share them. Do you
believe in magic? I do, now that I have met you.
Tell me your story, for it might well become part of my
story. Let me in. Let me see you. All of you.
I want to know you.*

-Jojo Roden

Lost
A voyage of expression
Of pain
An examination of ones own worth
A date with desperation
A way to find solace, identity
The words kept by the heart and abused by the brain
Where dreams go to die and worries come to stay
To be stuck in an endless void
Where warmth is a stranger and coldness a neighbor
To dance with the monsters that dwell in your head
And comfort the ones that live under your bed
A forbidden art with sweet release
To tangle with your own desires
The darkness brings something the light cannot
Courage, anxiety, strength
A candle provides a dim path
The heat from the fire burns
Reminding you of how alive you are
How blissfully free
And how utterly alone

MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY: A Dreadful Tale about a Dead Anglo Mother, A Dreadful, Avenging Syrian Aunt, A Stolen Baby Sister, and a Hateful, Unfaithful, Defaulting Father.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With people, people who hardly know
Your vices, your intrigue, your lies, and so,
You’ve ruined lives, and now I will show

How demonizing you are, with just your thinking
About your “slemly” self,  just linking [Nice in Arabic]
That self to your own, and not us--no one else
You belong in no company, your old-time thinking.
Adopting my sister, without any inkling
Of what it takes to challenge the motherless
And seeing we ended up, also, being fatherless.

Travesties galore made this woman happy
You won hearts, but you seemed quite daffy.      
Childhood, telling us we’d never be as good
As your Syrian daughters - such a strange brood!
This kind of “teaching” by a Syrian mom was kinda lewd.

She verily and surely became our ISIS
She thought who could ever, ever be like us
She raved for hours so very against us
To that red-headed family so she could easily best us!
Humiliating us at every stop
We really, really got a lot
From her, the decadent Queen of ISIS
No, she’d never, ever be like us!

Twenty years to a guileless young person
Is a forever herstory an eternity…
A lesson, an identity…
Carried on secretly, destroying our Syrian identity.
She stole that connection, filling it with confusion
She with cruel humor would **** our loving illusion
Stopped it in its growth,
Forever unseating that family oath.
To care - without any rejection.
It was She that was The Great Defection.

Mary, Mary how does your hatred grow
Picked on those who had no Syrian power
But you didn’t see yourself becoming lower
To the ends of the earth, heartless black flower.

In her mind she’d be our Mother
But as this poet, I did not know it
Things would be better if we like sheep
Worshipped Mary, into the deep
Quite similar to the rest of her Keep
Then mayhap we’d enjoy their fully undeserved sleep.

Taught my dear baby sister like her to hate
Would I had the power to shut up her pate
Her mouth was evil to the core
I never, never could stand more.
Her hatred entered me, made me sore.

Screaming at us to keep us out
Stupid Daddy joined her in this falling out
She, successful -as any lout.
By God I thot I must be evil
Their strange behavior was not legal.
Would that she’d accept me, that dangerous eagle.
I lost my sense of self and ‘came very sad
Would that I could be like she so glad.
‘Tis fifty years now, and I can’t stop crying.
No one ever heard this “mother” sighing.

Hell, Mary, full of Face
Recognizing only your Syrian race
Did anyone else matter? Just your primitive face?
Everyone one was hurt, except you and your nace
There’ll be no one, ever, that could take your place.
Laughing to destroy our wanted Arab destiny
Which you did, and did, successfully, with your fantasy.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
Like plants, you lined us up all in a row
One good, two bad - you did the choosing
And what did you leave?
Only us, who did the losing.
You didn’t water those two plants.
Treated us two as if we were ants.
Watered sissa so she would grow
Your dreaded deeds no one would know
Judgement is left only to God.
But you and Dad should’ve returned to your sod.
Your behavior to the motherless seems very odd.
My sister and I two tossed peas in a pod.

Deserting us suddenly knowing only this hateful group
There’s nothing to which she wouldn’t stoop
Her sick obsession to hurt the powerless
Speaks of a very worst yes, cruel foulness.

We lived at a convent school very protected
Visiting weekends this aspiring ****,
Two sisters know she made a very strong mark
She was not our blood, we couldn’t take part
Of this constant coldness on her part.

And another Aunt with two daughters, good
They were always with us, always stood
The opposite of this wicked would-be aunt
This family, Americanized and very sane
Never did play the ancient Ottoman game
These Aunts were our world - our windowpane.

Two aunts - endowing us with a Syrian heritage,
One, the bad one, with too much leverage
The good one to teach a cheerful Syrian beverage      
With balance, love, and the length of days
Not like the other, the one who dismays.

We represented that bad woman’s target
What it came from. Could it be her precious Margaret?
No, not at all her peaceful daughter
But the other, gladly joined in on the slaughter
Making serious and even much more, fodder.

We had no tools to breach this hate
I guess that it would have to be our fate.
To live our lives just disenchanted.
Our hearts broke, as if forever lancets.
With Syrians there’d be no more dances

Taking my sweet sis turning her against us
She did truly give strong heed to finally fence us.
What ever could we find for our defenses?

Dad, real Dad, inebriated dad,
Fell in with them: became this negative father
Sought their pity--likening me as a foreign daughter
He was in love with them, weakly turning
But in turn, the two of us, spurning
Back to his Syrian fold back, not farther
Unwittingly, unrepentedly, uncaringly, joining the laughter
Discarding his American daughters to a mental slaughter.

At his picnic - family there - he called us foreigners
Foreigners we were, surely, when with them
They couldn’t ever believe in us,
Dad influenced them, peeved at us.
Made us feel like little fools.
No, we never had the tools
To fight this ignorance - Change these mules?

Punishing, punishing us as wedded women
Accused of all that they gossiped about
What did they say? And this truant dad a lout
Speaking of us in downing tones
I’d feel far better had they broken my bones.

Closing his relationships to his
Two lesser liked non-Arab sisters
Would there would be a better mister
He considered us two a mere sinful blister.

We ran away from this horrible drunk
He hated his daughters and he stunk
And then we suffered the worst of any they would dunk
Uncomfortable at their Arab-speaking home
We stopped visiting long before their moan
We were “no good”  said our Syrian family
Would that we knew that we’d be anti-Family.

They had something to hate and did they do it
We had no idea we were just a joke
Their words, their disgust, far more than a poke.
Their anti-American provincial views
Made little sense - such perverted mews
All we loved, we would really lose.
There was never any right to choose.

That Family didn’t speak, avoided us
At sissa's Syrian wedding. It was all mined
That scene returns to me all of them lined  
Winding its way into my unbidden mind,
They were so, so truly unkind
We always would be to them the “Other”
Yes, us, us, us, without a mother!

We lost three mothers, our real one gone
Also our good step-mother quickly on
Add Mary to that three, glad she is gone
Perhaps Dad guilty of the first two deaths
I shan’t continue - you’d lose your breaths.
  
But Hail that Lady, she would change our world
Sending us suddenly into a whirl.
How to change the young with screaming?
She’d not change but destroy our dreaming
Waking horribly from our Syrian dream
We just didn’t fit their shady crème de la crème.

Everyone was fooled by this greedy witch
She and her daughters I’d deem as *****
What was in them, caused their making?
Taking away, taking, taking, taking.
Good cousins now, have seen an awakening
My work of writing revealed Mary’s faking.

Hail Mary full of Face
Only using her charms to erace
The sisters she wished not to embrace
With threads of lies an unrevealing face
Syrians’ acceptance of her goldarn place  
No one ever will she replace  
In every way she used her mace
A clever poison to keep her place
Successfully, she’d snidely hid her dreams
Wearing a mask to hide her themes.

She’d always hated us through and through
We didn’t know it till she did what she’d do
Her masque did work, from dusk to dawn.
Hatred of us was what she would spawn
She would definitely **** our spirits
Would that I could reveal all her lyrics.

Our Syrian sissa’s wedding put us in place
That even there we could have little space.
No other family events could we be included.
Engagements, baptisms, we would be excluded
Their intentions now were completely nuded.   deluded!

You stole our little baby entering the world
Through our Mom’s Death
You stole my Dad’s affection
He also her straw man, worshiping Mary‘s fiction
Her stand could only be that of affliction.

Hail Mary full of Face
Face that faced nothing exçept winning the Ace
Did no one ever tell you - you were a case?
Using your screams to stuff our mind
And even more shrieking to clog our mind
No other Syrian family could be so unkind.

Always filling us with her delicious food
Only to turn against us, trussing our good mood.
I’d like to regurgitate all that poisonous food
Anything about her became totally lewd.
She bragged of her daughters - were they really that good?
When we were children, told us we’d never be like them
We never wanted to be like those hurting us.
Took our Dad’s affection, he also deserting us
We never but finally saw that they were into hurting us.

She has attacked us screaming, screaming on end
Never an explanation, never to end
She took money, stole sister too, not a lend.
With this cruel treatment, we were not able to fend.
I’ve never heard such venom in any human voice
It seared through both my ears, such an odious noise
Those first twenty years were so very splendid
But later with her actions - all was ended
With her allotted time this is how she would spend it.

Sister, affections stolen, obeying by fear
Couldn’t counter - with a mere
Stand up to this fraud of a Mother Dear.

Our baby sis had became her clay
She would remake her through many a day.
She owes us much, this lying thief
No family tree would know, not even a leaf
She stole and changed our beautiful blood
Returned nothing except a bad bad flood
Of making our names into family mud.

She then gave out inimical messages
The taunting that came from her mealy mouth
From Damascus, that lousy mouse.
Couldn’t discuss, but only scream
What ever, ever, did she mean?
This Family into which father bought.
Their apathetic “reasoning” I was never taught.

Her daughters conscripted to the Mary core
Following her words, her iron ore
Inflated us with much heavy criticism
To fill our sissa with a lack of witticism

Lying, lying she always, always hated us
For twenty years, she consistently slated us
For slaughter, just like little lambs
Motherless, she took our little lamb
She won, didn’t she, in her sham?
Mary & dad really fated us with their sick flim flam!

She’d tackle anyone, anything in her path
And she did, with her oh so dreadful wrath.
What powered this extremely devilish mind?
She had never, ever, been really kind.

Our sodden father turned to her
She was Goddess, he deemed Something
While we were nothing, nothing, NOTHING!
It didn’t happen till twenty years after
From kindliness to hypocrisy
One would not believe.
Our real selves never to retrieve.

A sweet child, sissa, full of love
Knew they were cold and she let us know
After those years, sadly though
Turned into another hateful *****
Forced to be like them, else be ditched.

Dad, dad, the precious Syrian lad
Embraced the family gatherings that they had
Youngest of the Ikmuks - he was mad
Allowed them the desecration of our pad
They could say anything--made it their fad.

He wouldn’t speak to them of their travesty
Worshipped them, and ever drastically
Wanted to be Them, lest he be
On the Outs from the Family Tree
Ousted, married out of the Tribe
Hardly now, when this happened, few are alive.
He refused to tell them we both should be here.
He would never, ever, play it fair.
“Dad, if you go, I’ll never be the same.”
He would never, never take the blame.
Of his paltry stabs at being a human
Go stuff him in a jar with more rotten cumin.

Never defended us, never, never
Always took their part like a mismatched lever.
Usually a Dad with a daughter would stay beside her
But then, he gave Mary a far wider rider.

Gatherings went on, by the family Mare.
All our lives had been spent with them before
But Iron Lady with Iron Ore
Came through later and before.
She would win, so well connected to her vile kin
Change, girl, change, you’re just an Anglo fem.
Don’t, please, don’t pay much attention to them.
Sudden hate - my thoughts now were dashed.
I changed - they took all I had and then they smashed.

They brought us into their sickly Ottoman lives
But all of them acted as if we had the hives
They, centuries‘ habit, it was the mid-1950’s why so bold?
They were too much, too much very, to behold
We were stricken, treated as in days of old
We would never be part of their unhealthy mold  [Mould?]

Regular at Church. What kind of God could she worship?
You know who should have been told? The Syrian Bishop!
The She-Devil not even relishing the Church script
Eternally, she would always, rip, rip, and then grip!
Instead looked to those after Church who would serve her!
She did just this with a total fervor.
No Communion, no worship, but her only feats
To seek and add to gossip in the streets
Afterward. When-Where everyone meets.

Se enjoyed the Devil of Power over those she knew
Verily, she should have been thrown in the loo.
Few new. Only the rejected two.

Mary, Mary full of Mace
You never did achieve much grace
Wish you could have finally
Fallen on your ignorant Face
There’s really not going to be any space
To explain your bad translation of a very good race.
The Syrian families I always know very well
Would never have made this kind of hell.

The Syrian race is good, except for this “mother”
I speak from my place as the dreaded ”Other”
You are and were a terrible, mother
You’re a crude example of this Middle Eastern  race.
Very few of them did see through your face.

In that family I barely gleaned this toxicity
But, never, ever, did I witness much felicity.
They llaughed and laughed about any Other
Played well their acts as if they cared
They knew Syrian-like we would not fare
We, Dad, all sisters three - fell for her snare.

What think you, God, of these poor children
How il-ly this Family thoroughly tilled them
Two non-Arab daughters’ given bad repute
Their shocking beliefs really made us mute
All that came from her demented mind
All that encountered Mary’s “kind”
She destroyed our conception of self
This hypocrisy would make one melt.

She infiltrated us, her daughters, and my Sissa
That we were not as good as she - but she lost her mister
Had Uncle [our blood] lived, this would never have occurred.
But Auntie [not our blood] surely had demurred.
Her hooked-nose criticizing, and simple daughters,
Psychologically--against us-- they joined in on these slaughters.
Kindness for two decades to rent, later they spent
Hell on the motherless, but hiding that intent
Taught her daughters: “Don’t be involved with them”
We really do know some of what she did, or said,
This is the kind of meal that she constantly fed
Her masque nearly hiding her evil bent.
Too bad she wasn’t forced back into her Syrian tent.

Mary, Mary quite contrary, How does your world work?
You won, you won, you ignorant, piece of work
You demanded respect from all of us, treacherous,
She got it, didn’t know it, then she brought down the two of us

Sneaky, low-life, hypocrite witch
We always thought we had a niche
But lost kids like us did never snitch
We wouldn’t, didn’t open up about that *****.

We had a twenty-year comfort zone with her
Deserted at last by her flying fur
Stolen, deserted at last by Dad--that foul mister
Stolen, deserted, lastly by our pretty baby sister.

This left us changed by this She-Devil
Would that there’d be a way to counter her evil
We couldn’t - she was always far too strong
An ISIS for us - this would last too long.

After these years, I could not grow
Was I a real woman? -  I didn’t know!
Being a mother couldn’t show
That this Family created a list of woe.

When Sissa had babies & a mom to help
We did this alone - all this we felt.
Her faulted hatred never did melt.
I didn’t know how to take a stance
Nor could I find out how to advance.
We had to oppose Aunt Mary’s dance.

That Sissa could not bo