Dear Lebanon

There’s a wound in you That challenges us not to love so we could love, regardless There are people in you That are intolerant and ignorant So we learn to tolerate, regardless There are ideas entrenched within you That we should not stand close When they kneel to a different god Or to no god at all So we stand close anyway There are places within you That are devoid of hope So that we could hope anyway There is a darkness That hovers over all of your tomorrows So that we live monstrously like it’s the last of our days There is a scar that runs through our chests And onto our parents’ wrinkling skin That’s even deeper than the void That is this This pressing thought That I might as well leave To some other place. And I would have Had it not been for my family And The people I hope to keep But then the life in me shatters and whispers “You’ll see them on Christmas Before the new year” “You’ll see them over Adha And if the summer is clear” Lebanon Lebanon You tiny little trace In this gigantic merciless space You’ve crushed us all slowly Every day You’ve always been like this Long lost and washed away I am sorry I am angry I do not have the heart To hope today But I swear by at least this That regardless of the horror that is this If I had a choice I would have loved you anyway.