The Rubble and I Have a Toxic Relationship

Today we’re publishing a second poem from Bayan Fares, a Palestinian poet. This poem, like the first, delves into the current matter of the genocide of Gaza and the mortality (and immortality) of the moment, but goes deeper into the nuance of the Palestinian connection with the ancestral homeland and the certainty of liberation for Palestine in this life and the hereafter.

 

 

The Rubble and I Have a Toxic Relationship

By Bayan Fares

 

The rubble is                someone

I often think of with fondness

 

He was once clay, after all

A stone made to stand tall

I built him from the ground up

With my bare hands that bruise and cut

 

I nourished him until healthy and strong

Filled his belly with warm hearts and folk songs

I became his home, his haven

And filled the silence with laughter of children

 

I know he forgets often and takes me for granted

I feel shy asking for more knowing I’d come back empty-handed 

 

Though I must admit,

               There never once was a thought

That made me rethink being loyal to my rubble

 

Even when the bombs beat me

Come crashing down on me

Bury my homes

Burn my trees

Kill my kin

Sing songs to the West about me

I confess,

           I still love my rubble

 

Because, you see,

The rubble and I have shared history

 

He’s witnessed my pains and held my hand through catastrophes

He’s the tombstone of my family in Syria

And holds the photo albums of my friends in Turkey

He carries the memory of my ancestors in Gaza

And sits atop the land of my bulldozed home in Palestine

 

My friends keep telling me to leave the rubble

For it is far too dangerous to be in love with destruction

 

But how can I?

When the rubble I know is whole

Was once a home

With furniture and chandeliers

Living rooms and memories that bring me to tears

 

Not brick that breaks as easily as glass

By shrapnel so hot, it burns even brass

 

From time to time, yes,

He separates me from loved ones

Destroys my belongings

And leaves me homeless

 

But I cannot get myself to leave

My rubble

 

I cannot stop whisking his dust through my fingertips

Mixing him with water, wishing he’d turn

Back to clay,

             Back to stone,

                      Back to walls built high and tall

I cannot hide from the shrieks coming from

Beneath

                          the

                                          rubble

 

I cannot leave this toxic place

For he is me and I am him

 

I will instead hold my ground

Strong in my roots

With abundant certainty

That the God of the rubble can hear me

When I say,

 

I am here, rubble

I stand firmly against all odds and

                                                        Oppressors,

 

I am the land you bomb and bleed

Laid flat and barren, but not broken

No matter how many times you break us into rubble

 

You fill my skies with drones and smog

You litter my land with hate and fear

 

Today, but not tomorrow

Because tomorrow, I fight back

 

Tomorrow, I mix more clay,

                           Make more stone,

                                         Build more homes

 

Tomorrow, I will not leave nor will my rubble

But we’ll force you out

Of a homeland that is not yours

 

So that every woman, man, and child in my land

Knows that we will soon be

 

                                                       Free

 

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