Empathy
by Yehya Baraka
I talked to the grains of sand
I asked them: what bottled message home left for me?
Was it a farewell that eludes the horizon with warnings
Or a mistaken call erased with the thud of the spark of an ignited barrel?
This is the hourglass I failed to freeze from drowning in its quicksand,
I write home a thousand letters waiting for orphaned bullets.
This place refuses to leave me
Like my tongue unable to forget the memory of nativity.
Yet I wash my hands from the guilt I adopted
This is not sainthood nor martyrdom.
It’s how I survived Iraq and continue muting others’ pain
It’s a price I paid, a piece of me
home claimed as its own.
I don’t know if I ever will be sincere in saying “this hurts me as well”
But some masks are better left worn than baring the storied flesh.
This is what being human must be, a balancing act;
tightrope between the horizon and the sun
I wish I could stop loving all the fragments of masculinity
I wish I could stop touching the insides to strangle a prayer out of memory
I wish I could stop saying “I need help” in the words of “I’m in love”
A dead habit I wear and force the hood down to show
A less deceiving face to those who need empathy.
