I wish not to erase my own lineage.
I sit in a sun-filled apartment that gets too warm then too cold and sulk into myself, slip like a boat departing to sea. I think of Gaza’s sea. I book a nail appointment then a hair appointment then pick and poke at the flabs that have returned and folded at my stomach, prodding myself for beauty. I despise my phone but pick it up too often. Martyred. Killed. Numbers sometimes seem digestible on a screen but I imagine bodies piling and souls trapped under each other, searching for limbs in the darkness of a starved night. I have been sleeping better. I wish my insomnia did not leave, I confess, it gave me something in which to anchor the horrors I see but can not scream about. Do not feel. Can not touch. Yearn to near but I have lived the privilege of worrying about the trivial, the color of sharp nails and food I have lost an appetite for. It is as though I must prove to myself that I am affected. Tuned in. Still fighting. If not vocally, at least my body could not rest at first—nearly two years ago now. Countless bodies. Endless horror but I am swept up in the mundane, the need for survival income shelter. The search for love. The warmth of friendship. I broke my foot and fussed over my loss of agency. My life is not on the line. Sometimes I behave like it is, a tantrum about misfortune. I seem to forget myself. I wish not to erase my own lineage.
⋆。𖦹 ˚ ⋆。𖦹 ˚ ⋆。𖦹 ˚ ⋆。𖦹 ˚ ⋆。𖦹 ˚ ⋆。𖦹 ˚
I wrote this at the culmination of a writing workshop by Safia Elhilo, which offered resonating, poignant poetics of these times, and prompts that generated more honest words from me than have been pouring lately. I urge you to sit down with a friend, read the poetry aloud, and do it too.


this is incredibly good.
Time & time again your words are the truest