I miss writing poetry.
Free Palestine.
Sliman Mansour, Revolution was the Beginning
When I was a teenager, I feared the day I wouldn't write poetry anymore. My greatest dread was growing up and becoming boring, thinking this would lead to nothing to write about. But I haven't become boring. The world hasn't made me boring. I've become angrier and sadder.
Back then, my anger and sadness came from within—it was something I could channel, like a laser beam or a river flowing out of me. My poems communicated my sharp feelings. The first thing I blame for the end of this was the assault I experienced soon after graduating high school—a brief encounter with the only person in my small hometown who felt like a part of me, a part of my future as a writer. This is where any serious writing ended. It wasn't purposeful or loud; it ended, in a stupidly literary way, in a whisper.
Since then, the world has become louder than my insides. My life has become relationships, community, and mutual aid. The anger and sadness come from around me—the pain, heat, and genocide of it all.
And I question: is now the time to start writing poetry again? When the big feelings are not in response to the inside of myself but the outside? Do I have a right, an emotional and ethical and artistic right, to bring poetry back into my life and for it to be rooted in others' pain? Do I deserve that?
Even then, if I am messaging about atrocities, trying to force people to look through the lens of the arts, is that right? Is it fair to come back to myself when many are losing everything?
Is it fair to do anything at all that is not yelling, not screaming, not punching walls and holding signs and sharing food with every mouth I see and know and hear? And is "fair" the right word?
I don’t want to oversimplify, but I find the whole thing so simple. One of my students wrote on his end-of-year portfolio, “Free Palastine. I love Palastine.” Isn’t it that simple?
Stop the genocide. Remember that if you are a human being, it is your duty to love Palestine. It is your duty to love the people in it. The whole world must be reminded to love Palestine, for we do not destroy the things we love. We fight for them. We never stop saying no. No, no, no, no. Be tired and angry, but keep the why visible and obvious. Say no to occupations. Say no to colonization. Say no, no, no, no, no to genocide.
I feared growing up and not writing poetry, but truly that’s become irrelevant. I can do it if I want to. I should have feared so many things. I fear that we will look away. I fear for Ukraine, for my fellow trans folks, for those who carry wombs, for Palestine, for the warming planet, and for disaffected youth. I fear that we will bend to exhaustion and anger when really they are our most powerful tools. Why are we tired? Who is stealing our energy? Why are we angry? Who is committing and enabling these acts? I fear that anger and exhaustion can exist without love, and that is a violence.
If you can’t look straight at it, don’t look away. Look at this, at the art and the words, and know that the things hardest to see are right next to them, are real, and need all of our fucking anger.
Too see:
Above: Illustration of photo of Palestinian casualty by Ammie Art Studio
