CHARMING CHARITY CASE (YOU KNOW

CHARMING CHARITY CASE (YOU KNOW)

you know below poverty line you know hungry you know single mama hard working high strung yet fun loving always cooking and gentle in laughter

you know ODSP not talking cigarette smoke walls breathed by 6-year-old you know under the table for minimum wage

you know broken kids broken school systems broken homes hustling the games the language of hood rat the language of too poor to be understood rat

you know mispronounced names and misunderstood pain anger that mobilizes anger that boils in melting pots to small towns

p. 13

iAM POETRY 2020

iAM POETRY 2020

p. 14

you know exile

exile through generations refuge [1] severed roots [2] displacement K K K canada

dreaming of the unsettled

you know unsettling whiteness unsettling violence dysfunction

you know correcting communication healing

you have essence of IDF trauma perverse police presence problems you know resilience of the intifada[3] resilience of refugee kids you see it in mama khalto[4] and all those who breathe life into the diaspora

you know written, spoken, visual creation you know listening you know trauma in the reiteration of uprooting pain that l i n g e r s for generations

you know adjusting by the success of institutions who secretly don’t want your contributions and how conflicting it is to be successful in a world that doesn’t want you to exist erasing your struggles erasing your people erasing you

who knew you had to trade your history for the comfort of social mobility?

you discovered that you are not one of them and you never will be you have your own you hold your ground and Allah has blessed you

you were the friendly terrorist muslim savage palestinian the lunch time entertainment in elitist cafeterias you were the angry warrior in classrooms the labelled success story in at-risk neighbourhoods the anxious speaker of mother tongue

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iAM POETRY 2020

iAM POETRY 2020

p. 16

you were the perfect poor kid the easiest hand me down the most charming charity case

the challenge to touch and puncture

your poetry comes from dark places of oceans your freedom cultivates land from your knowing your resilience transferred from the rivers of blood of your ancestors the citrus of lemons the traces remains and reminders of home

you are a guerrilla fighter for the poor a warrior for the fellahin[5] a front liner for the hood for the exiled for the erased the gentrified and the displaced the daughter of rock solid refugee kids whose hands were made from tree trunks carriers of your branches and leaves

you’re rediscovering islam peace ritual spiritual a greater symbiosis beyond you i swear it’s all like hypnosis when they tell you not to have faith

you’re severed without purpose

you know the aching of 51 gunned down in prayer in sacred in mosque “hello brother” “salaam brother” “can you hear me brother?” * the pain of a thousand lost

and thousands who don’t understand the weight of two million densely packed in open air prison the magnitude of this you know shells who escape their humanity to pretend that the rest of us aren’t left praying for one another

[6]

with time you come back to the young ones you know watching little boots tracking your footsteps tiny toes balancing on yours you know playful giggles and giving for generations ahead you know smiles and spirits and how hers will always ground you in your troubles

you only saw mama’s tears once

beside elevator doors

p. 17

iAM POETRY 2020

iAM POETRY 2020

p. 18

feeling helpless to dysfunction

desperately clutching onto words that are broken more broken than your homes than your city and to unrecognizable lands and earth that are no longer yours dehumanized in your own skin crafted from the earth’s clay by something greater than you

this is learned self-hate

how do you think Allah, your ancestors, mama would feel if you tried to rip it off your body to bare bones of distant trauma outside of body experiences let’s re-root ourselves in our bodies our homelands our mother tongues our ancestor’s stories and pain

in every library i create my own mokheyem[7] my own space of solitude refuge

you resemble mama you have her dimple her modest frame that doesn’t take up space at first glance but whose energy screams volumes her laughter nervous or otherwise

you resemble a runner in food shortages

bombshells home invasions guerrilla fighter warrior survivor

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[1] Arabic for “Lebanon”. The transliteration is “Lebnan”. [2] Arabic for “Palestine”. The transliteration is “Falasteen”. [3] The transliteration for the Arabic word meaning “uprising”, referring to Palestinian grassroots resistance efforts. [4] Transliteration for the Arabic word meaning “maternal aunt” or “aunt on mother’s side”. [5] Transliteration for the Arabic word meaning “farmer” often referring to Palestinian farmers who live in a holistic way with the land they cultivate. [6] Arabic and Islamic phrase for when a person dies. [7] The transliteration of the Arabic word meaning “refugee camp”.

iAM POETRY 2020