We lost our way in the littered streets of rebellion.
And allowed for our being and our culture to slip into the cracks of the pavement and into the potholes of cultured destruction.
We wanted freedom to be non-Palestinian. We yearned for America.
But the fiber of the umbilical cord strewn so delicately, yet so powerfully never ceased in its hold and it was clear no matter how hard we tried to lacerate the connection we couldn’t cut it away and It was indestructible.
And ay did our mothers pray for our well being and safety and ay did our fathers pummel into our psyche the pride of culture!
“You will speak Arabic in the home for English is inevitable!”
Thank you Yuma and Yaba!
And experience threw the challenges at our feet and disabled our stance. We shook unsteadily but never wavered from the truth because we were incapable. It was after all sewn into the veins of our Palestinian selves. And time came and went and the ground steadied itself in our grasp of understanding and non-understanding of what and who we were and of how and where we came from.
The fragrance of our kitchens somehow etched their way into the depths of our souls. And the olive trees did grow.
“*They loved us as if they had no more breath in their body to love anyone else.*”
And we lost our breath loving them back.
-m
*samya shunnarah*
mahani 