We Outlast Empire is a recurring series which aims to highlight poetry that explores the many angles of our current global and political situation. With words, we hope, we may transmute a part of ourselves—a part however small or large—that can exist without drawn borders, without violence, without injustice.

Letter to Motherland

Palestine

Ya Mawtini,

May the seventieth year of namelessness not arrive

May your wind be tamed to a unified people

May your branches burn only when we till your soil

May your roofs quiver only by the dabke of your daughters

May all of your children follow the scent of bread home

Surely, I wish to be upon your sun kissed soil

I grow tired of swimming in borders

that do not belong to me

The voices in We Outlast Empire refuse complicity and draw their own borders. If you would like your poem to be apart of this series, please email mina@apogeejournal.org