The stinge of death permeated through my bones as I watched the devastation on my phone.

This city is all I’ve known.

Beirut! My beloved,

I consider you home.

Fifteen years I spent around all your districts, where I met my friends and all the misfits—dancing to the sounds of your moonlight magic, soaking up culture, the arts, and my heritage.

A melting pot of diverse perspectives, embedded in history; generational reflections.

As I learned to cope with the spectrum of differences, my country has been divided by psychopaths and narcissists.

Thirty years into my existence and the same ruling powers continuously haunt my spirit. While my parents had to pick up stiff clay corpses, I myself was forced to set out with various losses.

My narrative is not the unknown; many others have walked this path like stone.

I’m not sure how I feel at this point… On August 4th, we all lost our throne.

If I knew then what I know now,

I would stay behind and take a bow.

Having to make difficult decisions to leave,

I bit my tongue and kept a grieve;

Three thousand four hundred ninety-three miles of dreams,

I’m going through life living in extremes.

Confused and disoriented,

my reality seems exceedingly augmented.

Uncomfortable, and feeling weak,

my anxiety is at an all-time peak.

Help, I can’t go to sleep!

You see,

I miss my friends with all their freaks.

I miss my bed and the outside peaks,

waiting for the calls to plan the week.

Am I even allowed to speak?

With a roof over my head, food on my table,

a loving family, oh, I am eternally grateful.

But not everything is as it seems,

being far away brings different screams.

Haven’t you also been glued to the screens?

Ruled by a government of incompetent schemes,

annihilating a city known for its great supremes,

I sit back, horrified, watching in tears,

a deadly blast took away their dreams.

Unbelievable but very real.

Wait, I have more to reveal.

While everyone is hanging by a thread,

two hundred and twenty people are already dead.

A collective trauma has been triggered,

and six thousand people were left injured.

Three hundred thousand are left homeless,

and Fifty-two are still missing under the rubble, lifeless.

Thirty years of degrading oppression,

a government of warlords initiating tension.

We will no longer fall victim to the repression,

It’s time to wake up and lead by aggression.

It’s a fierce power struggle for coexistence,

fighting the fight with remorseless insistence.

Met by heroes with mighty resistance,

and an army of men watching from a distance.

If I knew then what I know now,

I would stay behind and take a bow!

#Beirut #Lebanon #TalkaboutLebanon #mygovernmentkilledmypeople #prose #poetry #nonfiction

Earlier tonight I was on a call,

had a conversation, striking cannonball!

Touching on all the valid chords,

got me thinking about man and his hoards.

Trapped in orgiastic thoughts,

selling ourselves short, creating more knots.

Escapisms no longer escaped,

fighting out demons; our souls getting raped,

troubled by our physical, mental, and emotional state,

numbing the pain becomes a mandate.

Voices in our head, thinking they’re gone,

all at once, we turn into the black swan.

Losing sight of what is real,

detaching from our paths, trying to heal,

giving our spirit spaces to roam,

fragile beings, we can’t find our way home.

Seeking love from the sacred source,

loneliness becomes a driving force.

The silver lining, our only oath,

transcendence only brings growth.

Surrender to the ultimate flow,

follow the light, follow your glow.

As passages of the ancients show,

as above, so below.

Floating with her head underwater,

murmurs of the one who brought her,

ripples of dropping rainwater,

silence your mind, he told her.

Grounded in the sand,

he offers her his hand,

he said,

control your breath to understand,

we are on sacred land.

Echoing childish laughter,

she gave in to the rapture,

needing a moment to gather,

what a feeling to capture.

Trying to stay calm,

she slowly tapped his palm,

regaining conscious balm,

life beautifully concealed charm.

Softly grazing her skin,

rising, brushing away her timid twin,

steadily understanding the discipline,

she just went deep within.

Ordained ties divinely resistant,

childlike cries loud and distant,

chanting sounds, angelic, and persistent,

aligning her narrative, it’s real and existent.