:: this is why we dance //

for carmel
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Home in my memory is a green, worn-out couch
and my grandmother in every poem:
every jasmine picked off the backlash,
every backlash picked off the tear gas,
and tear gas healed with yogurt and onions,
with resilience,
with women chanting, drumming
on pots and pans
with goddamns and hasbiyallahs.
:
They work tanks, we know stones.
:
2008, during the Gaza bombings
my ritual of watching TV
ran between grieving
and Egyptian belly dance music.
I fluctuated between hatred and adoration,
stacking and hoarding Darwish’s reasons to live

…………………. sometimes……….believing them.
…………………. sometimes dipping my bread in indulgence,
knowing a child is breadless, in Khan Yunis,
dipped in a roof’s rubble . . .
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If you ask me where I’m from it’s not a one-word answer.
Be prepared….. seated, …….sober, ………geared up.
If hearing about a world other than yours
makes you uncomfortable,
drink the sea,
cut off your ears,
blow another bubble to bubble your bubble and the pretense.
Blow up another town of bodies in the name of fear.
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This is why we dance:
My father told me: “Anger is a luxury we cannot afford.”
Be composed, calm, still — laugh when they ask you,
smile when they talk, answer them,
educate them.
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This is why we dance:
If I speak, I’m dangerous.
You open your mouth,
raise your eyebrows.
You point your fingers.
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This is why we dance:
We have wounded feet but the rhythm remains,
no matter the adjectives on my shoulders.
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This is why we dance:
Because screaming isn’t free.
Please tell me:
Why is anger—even anger—a luxury
to me?
:
:
fr Rifqa, by Mohammed El-Kurd, 2021
:
: forward by aja monet
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#weareonepeople #freethecaptives #witness #engage