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.