Maybe I’d be sleeping now
The family who took me in sleeps early
Unless the music of planes and their missiles kept us awake
Maybe I’d be getting ready to walk in the morning
to meet my friends
then head to the shelters
the ones that keep wearing my body down
It wasn’t hunger that made me weak
It was the helplessness I saw
in mothers’ eyes
the muffled groans of men
the child crying over his lost toys
These were the real reasons my body broke
Though they blamed it on lack of food
Maybe I’d see the sea
watch a seagull
and a crow stealing a body
watch the freedom of fish
crossing waters
without needing permission or coordination
Maybe I’d be sitting
on the same tree trunk we always shared
smiling at our sea
God, how I miss the sweetness of looking at your sea
Maybe now I’d be at a café
trying to catch a bit of internet
just to speak to my mother
Hello
Hellooo
Can you hear me
Then I’d send a message
The internet is bad
No matter
I calmed your heart
Maybe tomorrow will be better
And that lie would go on
still
Maybe I’d be at my friend Aboud’s house
talking politics, guessing what’s next in the war
dreaming of food we can’t find in the markets
I don’t know
I’ve forgotten the line
Maybe I’d be standing in one
waiting for flour
or a money transfer
or gas
Line after line after line
and the curse of war
Maybe I’d invent something with the kids
a paper fan
to cool our summer heat
and we’d take turns sleeping
just to feel a brush of air on our skin
Maybe I’d be dead
a missile, a mistake
a house I happened to pass by
a piece of shrapnel in my back
joining the procession of Sami and Ali
Maybe I’d still be alive
waiting for the border to open again
to see my mother
to cry harder over the years I lost
And I’d still be choked
by the question
I have no answer for
What if I hadn’t left
