George
GeorgeAbraham
Abraham
instructions for building Palestinian revolutions
for my future daughter
Descendent of rocks and scraped Knuckles / Child of shattering dawn, and crystalline
Twilight / Child who had the bible belt bruised out of her Genome / Daughter of olive tree and
pomegranate root:
When they point at you like their next anthropology project,
and ask
“so what are you really?”
correct them.
not dead.
Palestinian.
Do not let that word linger on your tongue like your
amnesia for all things holy; You
may be descendant from Christ’s lineage,
but trust me;
millions of God’s chosen people are erasing your history as we speak;
Do not let this bloodline drown like your ancestor’s ghosts under siege;
Remember, English was always your second language;
Arabic was scripture before tongues came out of Jesus’ closet of a throat;
Remember how they’ll label your throat, “colonization’s aftermath”
your birth, “repopulation;”
your ecosystem, “willingly endangered,”
your laughter, “venomous,”
Remember that sunken treasure is never beautiful unless it’s drowning;
when they mispronounce your name,
correct them.
tell them, i named you hawa,
translated “wind” or “love”
for the way they label your heartbeat
impermanent as your home;
heartbeat, improper;
heartbeat, unbounded;
heartbeat, Hades to the river Styx embedded into your circulatory system;
tell them i named you al youm,
translated “today”
because even that is not guaranteed;
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