Take me back home
Take me back home
Wrapped in sheets
From dusty refugee camps
that speak of indignity and displacement.
Take me back home
and hide these scars
witnessing murdered bodies covering the streets we once called home.
In a fight for love
in the name of freedom and democracy
I am lost.
In the steps that lead me to places
not yet determined
As migration plans my days ahead
Like caravans traveling to feature their jewels in souqs
We are bodies for camera lenses to capture
Frail and torn by war and displacement
This refugee card dresses me now
with rations of calorie-counted daily meals
Passing time watching fleets of people
enter an already crowded camp.
Take me back home
to where bare walls can comfort my heart back to its place.
Where kids on the streets would fear not gun shots
and retribution.
Where taking political stances wouldn’t mean taking my life.
This desert sand creeps into everything
Telling me I don’t belong
Not here
Not away from there
As night falls children cries grow louder
To unknown sounds of uncertainty.
Take me back home
my country
to where I am not a statistic
another body count to house and feed.
These white sheets held above me begin to fade
into colors telling me this is more than temporary.
Days, months or years will only leave me more displaced.
So take me back home
and fill me with forget-full-ness.
Erase every memory that distanced me from my roots.
Bring back smiles torn by violence and bloodshed.
Wash down these streets
and rub my eyes from tears that have left me soar
As my heart continues to beat
life-beats of existence
As picture frames are all is left of you
held in time awaiting to return
Back home
Tucked away in covers that smell of cool summer nights
When laughter would surround us till dawn
as the sun would rise we would fall silent to a new day
To sleep in the arms of our mother
watani, blady, my country.