Lived in an ancient farm town,
my hometown, Daraa.
Friends died, children tortured
in my motherland.
My motherland,
where Russia played Roulette.
Out there where people talked,
guns did now, terrors and whispers did now.
My children, your children,
plucked out of streets like weed.
Children, oh dear children,
suspected for rebellion.
Rebellion,
for not being able to play?
Rebellion,
for not being in their mother’s arms?
Spring is lost with shrieks and torment.
Walking home, I’m not safe.
I’m suspected,
asked to be on my knees,
a gun on my forehead.
I see death;
I accept it, succumbing to it.
She comes, shouts
‘He’s my son!’, ‘My son!’
A stranger, she pleads, I’m alive.
I never see her again.
Underground in a tunnel,
towards Beirut.
I’m again terror stricken;
again, I accept my death.
Only this time...
I feel death. I am death.