A Fictional State

Lush plains and endless mountains. I am on my way back to a village left behind centuries ago. In it, our city is 
hidden; the old stonehenge still calling for sacrifices. The people of my city grow tall in yearning. We have ended time, 
again and again. It is time running eternal, and we are watching the red flowers push out of the ground to mark the 
clockwork of spring.
؎

In another life, I am holding my great-aunt’s photographs. She is taking the time to remember every 
name of our dead; the family who routed my selfhood. Let us commiserate. Let us remember who we are.
My great aunts create a family history, and so I am made into an oath. Every year and name, recorded. This is my
lineage, my memory, my home.
؎

The coffee spills on the table. The khobeeza from the garden is asleep next to flowers my great grandmother called
khobeeza because there was no English rotting in our mouths. I write my family’s history in a foreign language. My
great aunt hid her cigarettes in Germany for fifteen years. My mother’s family, a Herald and Oracle weeping between
the wind’s calls. I know my body in their movements: their big eyes and curving bones. I love them endlessly. I am 
born of their daughter, and I become their daughter.
؎

I photograph everyone’s home: a time that cannot be stolen.
؎

The garden bowed to my great uncle and now it bows to his wife. Her accent is a lilt I have admired
my whole life. I have spent years intimating the sound of her voice as a coveted prize. I sleep in my
second cousin’s and my great great grandmother’s old bedrooms, the house still fresh from
Damascus. I am under the lemon trees, watching the world sway under my family, transcended in my mother’s laughter.
؎

The goats and sheep are grazing. In their movements, I know the world is beginning again. We are alive again.
؎

Knowing where you are from is both a privilege and a given right. I look into the photograph of my mother and aunt in Jerusalem. It is 1964 and my family is at Qalandia Airport, when it still existed in its function.
My great aunt talks Jericho on a school trip, the majnouna reckless across the houses in the old country. My great 
aunt talks about picnics in Jolan. The world is ending, and we are held in beloved exile.
؎

My great aunt brings out her photobooks. I trace her hands. My aunt picked me from school, a burning za’atar
sandwich and sweet tea ready for me every day before Quran memorisation. My heart bursts on the kitchen table. I 
take note of everything: how the dishes are washed; the scent of drying thyme; the lull in the salon; the arching notes 
of the piano. I am spent in eternity in their homes; time sleepy, waiting for me to burst through the covers and cry like 
a lost child, wrapped in a river as if born to it.
؎

I am a nymph at sea, the fledgling lights bursting and burning against the chariot. I have dispelled ego 
and unveiled the sun. Who are you to decry the bodies? We are all martyred.

Artwork Courtesy of our featured Artist Hassan Zahreddine