leave me on the face of wind
despite the current, you are
hatred and love
misery and happiness
nonentity, but within you
a whole world of me
I’m a child who spent his childhood dreaming of becoming a pilot. When I was younger, I would design small planes with my friend Ahmed. He and I enjoyed building these planes. We would play with them with our friends. Ahmed was one of my best friends. He was a child full of life and fun. Crazy about some things, but his heart was very pure and peaceful. His eyes were small, and as soon as he smiled or laughed, his eyes became even smaller, as if he were closing them. He also wanted to be a pilot when he grew up. Every day we used to go to a park full of olive trees and on the branches of those trees the birds used to live and sing. On the walls of our ancient city, there was a collection of poems. Contradictory words and orphan letters were collected to express the condition of a person who is tired of life or a new lover.
I have a night in which I distribute my dreams
Arrange her slowly as a rosary of the preacher
And I have a fairy that comes as a night in my grief
As a wave that flowed from my chest over my heart
Another princess of sapphire hears a melodic melody
Sing me if you sing in a sweet voice like a remedy
And tell her if she gets lost between the ribs of my luck
Love killed a lover and your love gave me life
And if I were to choose a homeland, I would've chosen you
One day while I was playing with him, we heard the sound of the plane. We looked to the sky with big grins on our faces. We were very happy to see the plane, but this time it was not like the rest of the ones that we had usually seen. This time the plane was flying near us. The sound of the plane became more intense and it started to scare me. Ahmed was very happy. He said: "Look, the plane is coming to us. They are going to take us with them. We are going to fly today!” He was waving to the plane with his hand. “We are here," he cried.
I love you
Let me search for vocabulary.
Be the size of my yearning for you
And about words ... covering the area of your heart.
With water, grass, and jasmine
Let me think of you
I miss you
I cry, and I laugh about you
The distance between imagination and certainty has been removed.
Let me call you, with all the letters of the call
Let me start a country of love.
You are the angel in it
And in it I became the greatest of lovers.
Let me lead a coup
It consolidates the power of your eyes among peoples,
Let me change with love the face of civilization.
You are civilization ... you are the heritage that forms in the ground
Thousands of years ago
I love you
He was running, jumping and laughing. “We will achieve our dream today," he shouted. Suddenly we realized that it wasn't only one plane. There were a lot of them. Ahmed stopped laughing and started to feel scared like me.
My fear was growing more and more. Ahmed was shaking from the fear. We had never been afraid of the voice of an aircraft like we were this time. We were surprised, and our hearts trembled when we saw the fire eating everything in our city. My friend and I ran to see what happened. The planes had struck many bombs and missiles all over the city. What we saw no one can describe, because there are no words in this world that can describe that scene of a tragedy.
the sky has betrayed me
Search for me
There in the graves
Between the destroyed leaves
I was here just like you, passing
To die, my friend, I was born
No knowing when
how
or why
But my friend, I am the gift of death
Please give me gently to him
Do not deform my face after my death
And do not tear my soul
Crying and moaning
Don't worry, I was born an orphan
An orphan of a country and life
my existence was an illusion in this world
A dream I lived for a period of years
And here I go back to where I belong
I was just a visitor
And today I returned
Please, do not tear my soul
Crying and moaning
I saw the fire eat everything. I fled fast to my house, but I was surprised because I did not find it. All that I found was a fire burning through the entire region. My father, mother, sisters and my little brother who was only one month old had all died. Our house became a mass of ruin.
Later, after a search that lasted more than five hours by the police officers, a small piece of my mother’s hand started to appear. I ran to her in order to take her hand, but I did not find her hands. All I found was half of her body. The other half had been eaten by the fire. As for the rest of my family members, we just saw pieces of their bodies. The world became dark in my eyes. I wished it was just a dream. I wished I could get up to see my family again. My life is over, my childhood is ruined, and my dreams are shattered. It all ended when I saw my mother's corpse lying in my hands.
DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?
I am the Syrian child who gets killed everyday thousands of times, drowned and burned and slaughtered and no one helps me.
I am the Syrian child who has been sentenced by the evil planes to live without a childhood, and to die without a funeral.
I am the child who sees his father getting killed, then his mother, then his sisters, then I don't see anything anymore, because the time has come for me to die... just like my family.
Contributor Notes
It is hard to explain to folks who are not educators, what a delight it is to learn from our students. I learn from all my students, and Bashar Altawaala is no exception. The prose poem you see here was the final assignment in my creative writing class at Bronx Community College; students were to combine two of their previous assignments into a new project. It is an experimental work that often intimidates and/or excites students. Either way, they all have fun doing it. Sometimes, the impact of the result is undeniable, and that is what we have in this poem, “The Orphan.” Bashar’s images, metaphors, and syntax are created with such care, imagination, and surprise. I am impressed by his ability to capture innocence and the fall of that innocence, through family, tragedy, and love. The work here also displays a vulnerable masculinity, one that bravely speaks of the need of friendship, and we need this voice right now, when aggressive displays of masculinity are destroying our world via policing, military, and neoliberal fascism. I thank Bashar for sharing his work with our class, and now a larger audience.
Dr. Grisel Acosta
