Pages
Upon pages.
I write,
I scream.
I bleed.
Upon pages.
Where I drown out my cries.
In various fonts.
Setting the world I so desperately despise
Ablaze.
In the places that killed me to breathe.
You lived.
You found comfort.
Solace.
You found peace
Where I found pain.
I do not hate you for the love you lack.
But you do not know what it is like.
To watch you be without it.
It is the emptiness that speaks volumes.
It is the “something”.
That I long for.
Amidst the nothingness you provide.
Among the sea of chaos.
I wish to see you drown.
Maybe then.
You would have a drink to offer.
On your diet
I have starved
You have forbidden all things essential.
Where
Hope
Used to take the edge off of the pain.
The tears I rationed.
all have dried up like the well that held your capacity to care.
Simply put ,
I have lost all of the weight you placed upon my shoulders.


Because I finally took a bite of something sweet.

compulsively drip and run
down my fingers and into my mouth

someone please
count my fingers
and toes
lord knows, one may
be missing
if they are covered in chocolaty
brown gold

chocoholic, is my Hall of fame
covered in chocolate is my
sugar brown dream

They are ours.

The still small, smiling, crying
laughing, angered, forever hungry
Except for when its time to eat
Children.

Your children from your hips
My children from my *****

The answered prayers.
That flit to and fro
Fast and slow.
The sleepless nights
And late mornings
And causes of worry
And constant delight

We made those.

I try to let you in.
But
You have a habit of letting me down.
I try.
Over
And over.
And it’s never enough.
I tell myself
“Tomorrow will be different.”
And every day
I wake up defeated.
Why?
Because you never change.
And you expect me to be like you.

I’ve been a marionette on your strings,
Acting like your perfect little girl.
But I’m not little anymore.
No.
I’m just tired.
Tired of mothering your kids.
Tired of being the punching bag for problems that never concerned me.
Tired of being nobody in your eyes until you need me.
Tired of being needed.
I just want to be.
Enough.
I want who I am.
To be enough for you.
The way it is for me.
I want to do nothing,
And still be told “I love you.”
I don’t want my worth to be measured by the amount that I give.
Otherwise I'd be worthless.
Because I have nothing left.
Why?
I gave it all to you.

And nobody would ever see it.
What goes on in our walls.
But I walk down the halls,
At school.
Where nobody suspects.
Because it’s me, Lil.
I’m chill and friendly and non confrontational.
I’ve got a great fam..
Right?

Yeah.
Right.

I hear you in my head.
While you text me all hours of the day.
Informing me of just how much I disappoint you.
You beautifully serenade those paragraphs.
But conveniently
you never seem to pick up when I call.
I didn’t know parenting was optional when you had kids.

I wish you thought having kids was an option.

Maybe you wouldn’t have had them.

I’m glad that you’re trying your best.
But that means nothing to me.
When your best doesn’t meet minimum standards.
My expectations are not high.
All I ask is that your knees scrape the basic levels of care.
That.
Is all I ask.
I don’t ask you to take me places.
Or buy me things.
Or drive me.
Or pick me up.
Because the amount of times I used to wait.
Hours after my friends were picked up.
And the teachers would offer to drive me home.
But I just sat there on the pavement,
not knowing which house I was going to end up in for the night.
Because somebody's mother forgot about them.
Why would I ask anymore?
Why would I hold on to false hope?
To make you feel better?
Maybe you don’t feel sorry.
Because you're not the one paying the price.
Price of what? You ask.


Of not being loved.

You took everything away.
Burned down our homes,
Gunned down our children,
And built palaces over the dead bodies.
Do you smell it?
I smelled it once.
It was home.
Home to the famous olive trees.
That symbolized peace
And prosperity.
The most eye-catching landscapes,
The beauty in the ancient buildings
That
for so long.
Stood strong.
These.
Were the ones driven away from this land.
We.
Were the ones driven away.
Forced to mourn the day they demolished our nation.
The day they tried to demolish our souls.
The aroma of oud and kanafeh.
Can you smell it?
“I don’t smell it.”
Rubble and dust suffocate the air.
Suffocate our lungs.
Pain.
Despair.
We will not be forgotten.
We did not die in vain.
Oh,
My love.
One day,
I too will gaze upon the grace of that land.
My feet will tread the ancient streets.
And one day.
We will smell it again.
Love.
Because.
From the river to the sea.
One day.
Palestine will be free.

I had never met my grandfather
Because he died of a heart attack
And my father got heart medication from the drive-through pharmacy
While I watched calmly from the back
And at the doctor some years ago
They told me there was some foods I'd have to cut back
They both were perfectionists
So with my self-made stress, how can I bounce back?
I'll go my whole life achieving my dreams
Without once looking back
So don't compare me to them, no matter how similar we look
Don't curse me with a heart attack.