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Nora Agha Oct 2012
The olives groves you uprooted
And the homes you bulldozed

They may be gone now
But the soil must still know

To whom the land belongs.

From the rubble,
From the blood,

New branches will grow.
New homes will rise.

Because doves will fly on blood specked wings
To pass on the message
That Palestine still sings:

of the children you shot
and the blood that you spilled

The young men you imprisoned
and the hope you hoped would rot.

Our children have been promised
Your so-called promised land

So don't get too comfortable
On my well-worn couch.

I'll come back to reclaim it
My couch, my country, my land.
Written in a moment of anguish. But the sentiment is completely sincere.
Nora Agha Sep 2014
I was told to write down my identity
a neat sheet of paper
that would briefly explain me
I pondered a while
attempting to identify
a few key moments of my history
Do I tell of the immigrant?
or the miracle child?
do I speak of depression
and how I so rarely smiled?
Should I tell you about the language
I so rarely spoke
for fear of fitting a stereotype:
the terrorist trope.
Shall I explain hypomania?
and how I couldn't sleep?
and how the monsters I dreamt of
into my conscious peripheral would creep?
How I couldn't seek help
until I was almost twenty-one
because in my parents' culture
mental illness doesn't exist.
My parents were Palestenian refugees in Lebanon- but that's their story not mine, right? They were married for seventeen years before they had me. They tried to have children almost from day one- but that's their story not mine, right?
Finally they immigrated to Canada for a million procedures that would give them a baby. After six years of treatment, a random obscure procedure worked and I was a bun in the oven- but that's their story not mine, right?
nine months later I was born.

I was a miracle baby and the "light of their life." so they named me light: "Noor."
I was born at North York General with a priviledge my parents never dared dream: Canadian. Safe. Not a refugee. They had someplace that they'd send me for university.
With our new, safe nationality
at forty days old
I was taken to the UAE
I was raised on Western books
and Western TV
raised with ideas that just didn't fit
in a muslim family
(at least my family is liberal, unlike the UAE)
I haven't scratched the surface of who I am
and depending on the pieces I tell
I haven't scratched the surface of all that I could be
what I choose to write is how you will read me.

— The End —