I. Textbook Fragments
[DNA TEST: IF YOU DRAW BLOOD / FROM A PALESTINIAN, BOIL / ITS SUBSTANCE UNTIL / IT IS A TREMBLING WHITE¹ / BODY OF UNZIPPING / HELIX & DANCING VINE / PRACTICALLY AN ERASURE / OF ITSELF, THERE IS A ONE-IN-THREE CHANCE / THIS BODY SHARES / A CHROMOSOME WITH THE OPPRESSOR.²]
[FOOTNOTE: DO NOT CALL THIS WAR / GENOCIDE BUT INSTEAD, ETHNIC CLEANSING / PALESTINIANS NEED NOT LOOK AT / THE RACIALIZATION / OF IT ALL. THIS ENCOURAGES THE OPPRESSOR’S / POWER COMPLEX. MOST PEOPLE / IN THE MIDDLE EAST ARE WHITE / ANYWAYS³ WHAT IS NARRATIVE IF NOT THE BLOOD / IT CARRIES? WHAT ARE YOU IF NOT THE TRAUMA YOU INHERIT?⁴ ]
[ ISN’T THIS BIOLOGY THE MOST OPPRESSIVE THING YOUR MOTHER GIFTED YOU ]
¹ Whereas, the oppressor implants their DESIGN
into every h(a)unted bloodline –
this country: everyone’s
inheritance.
² By which you mean, the oppressor
runs through the bodies
their bullets miss?
³ By virtue of expulsion
or white phosphorus?
i.e. choose your .
⁴ Every time i open
my mouth: a chorus
of BLOOD
the oppressor calls it
DIVERSITY or NARRATIVE
hence FABLE.
i think of it as history.
II. Family History Fragments – a reverse chronology
israeli man asks me to tie him up and fuck him. says he has a POWER COMPLEX.
after taking a sex hiatus, i contract mono. why does my BIOLOGY fail me?
the first panic attack in college felt like a heart attack. ER tech says i just need sleep.
(the first time i was raped i was outside myself)
my parents are afraid college is making an ACTIVIST of me.
what happened to our george?
why don’t you come home anymore?
i eat hummus too, we’re practically the same: SOLIDARITY.
3rd grade: you’re dirty because you’re Ay-rab.
same year – baba almost dies of a heart attack.
age 6, i ask mama why we never visit palestine. why we never come home anymore.
my parents decide not to teach me arabic growing up: DEFENSE MECHANISM. or maybe i was never their george.
teta dies of cancer before i am old enough to understand. grape leaves blossom in her garden, little hands reaching for some invisible heaven. why does our BIOLOGY fail us?
baba takes over shop at age 20 after sido dies of a heart attack. his mother, widowed in this country where no one speaks her language.
sido is forced out of his home at age 20. hence, mama is born in america. hence i am american.
settlement camps surround Ramallah, make an eviction notice of teta’s house: cell MIGRATION. fatal OVERGROWTH.
auntie used to say the settlers took, first, the hilltops & aquifers. uprooted the olive trees & waged BIOLOGICAL WARFARE against our lineage: reclamation. of INHERITANCE.
(or was it GENOCIDE?)
when the colonizers emptied the villages, they lined up the men to be executed in front of their families, raped the women & planted pine trees over the wreckage. they were miles away from my teta’s town. just far enough so no one could hear the screams.
even when the land was ours
it wasn’t.
(this is how i feel about my body sometimes)
III. self-portrait as Palestinian Village, post-Nakba
what the textbooks fail to mention:
i was whole once. this flesh
wasn’t always the site of a bloodied
ecosystem; these rose-soaked
kuffiyat – a thousand dancing ghosts.
i was not always crumbled
fortress & concrete
partition. once, the bodies
in me could sing
without screaming
i have never known
this
trees singing different nation’s
wind-song; roots grasping buried
kin like only a mother could; even
when the colonizers plant life
in me, they make amnesia
of my childrens’ laughter assimilating
into wind & call my hollow,
false witness. the question
marks in your history books?
i am an erasure
of myself; my biology
fails me – i mean to say,
once i had a body
to choke on.
IV. ███████████████████████ [ ZIONIST NOTES & REVISIONS ]
israeli man asks me to tie him up and fuck him. says he has GIVES HIMSELF TO PALESTINIAN WITH a POWER COMPLEX.
after taking a sex hiatus, i contract mono. why does my BIOLOGY fail me?
the first panic attack in college felt like a heart attack. ER tech says i just need sleep.[ YOUR BODY IS IRRELEVANT IN ALL POLITICAL SCENARIOS ]
█████████████████████████████
my parents are afraid college is making an ACTIVIST of me.
what happened to our george? [ WITNESS THE PARENTS RECOIL AT THE BEAST THEY SPAWNED ]
██████████████████████████████████████████
i eat hummus too, we’re practically the same: SOLIDARITY. CHILDREN APPRECIATE ISRAELI CULTURE – A PEACE OFFERING, OF SORTS.
████████you██ dirty ██████ you██ Ay-rab.
███████████████████████████████
[ YOU SAID IT. WHY DO PALESTINIANS ALWAYS TEACH HATRED? EVEN AMONG THEIR OWN. ]
█████████████████ never ███ palestine. ███████████████████████[ IT WAS NEVER YOUR HOME TO BEGIN WITH ]
my parents █████████ teach me ██████████████████████████████ maybe i was never their george.
teta dies ████████████████ old enough to understand█████████████████████████████aching ██████ invisible heaven. █████████████████████████████
baba takes over. ██████████████
sido █████ a ███████████████████████████ country where no one speaks ████████████.
sido is forced out of his home at age 20. hence, mama is born in america. hence i am american.[ WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF BEING STATELESS? WE HAVE 2 MILLENIA ON YOUR LINEAGE; HE WAS SETTLER IN OUR HOME.]
settlement camps surround REVIVE Ramallah, make an eviction notice of teta’s house:
cell MIGRATION. fatal OVERGROWTH. [ YOU ALWAYS KNEW US TO BE CANCEROUS. YOUR BLOOD LIBELS & TALK OF LIBERTY CLOG THIS LAND LIKE ARTERIES.]
auntie used to say the settlers took, first, the hilltops & aquifers. uprooted the olive trees & waged BIOLOGICAL WARFARE against our lineage: reclamation. of INHERITANCE.
[ THE SETTLERS FLEE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION, MUCH LIKE PILGRIM SETTLERS FLED FOR AMERICA. YOU DARE PAINT US COLONIZER FOR RECLAIMING OUR PROMISED LAND? ]
(or was it GENOCIDE?)
[ BY VIRTUE OF EXISTING ON THE LAND BENEATH YOUR FEET, YOU ARE A GENOCIDE.]
when the colonizers emptied the villages, they lined up the men to be executed in front of their families, raped the women & planted pine trees over the wreckage. they were miles away from my teta’s town. just far enough so no one could hear the screams. [ AHISTORICAL ANALYSIS ]
███████ the land ██████
█ wasn’t.
(this is how i feel about my body sometimes) [ YOU CAN’T SAY YOU WEREN’T ASKING FOR ANY OF THIS ]
V. News Report Fragments
“No one should tell me that an olive tree is more important than a human life.”
– Colonel Eitan Abrahams
Israeli Defence Force Commander
they shot another █████
under an OLIVE TREE today. he was
unarmed. autistic –
my cousin’s reckless
limbs – the village children
emptied of smiles. like his
brother – an israeli
prisoner. TREMBLING BODY. said
a terrorist’s CHROMOSOMES pass
through an OLIVE TREE like him
& he was outside
himself. tantrum all
flying leaves, his sole
weapons. until –
& snap.
& still.
& air
thickens the way
skin retreats
from exit wound
for what seems like centuries.
another OLIVE TREE absorbing
aftershock. & DANCING VINE
whip. oil splattering
the pavement. earth drunk
off his gold SUBSTANCE.
grape leaves partition
the turbulent wind
he leaves behind –
mother – a weeping
willow – wondering
what else this land
will take from her