When people tell me that Liberal-ized “LOVE” is the answer… that all we need is sole “love” to lick the well-deep wounds… I have this burning desire to respond:
Will Love put my native tongue back into my bruised, post-9/11, numbing-cream™ filled mouth?
Will it allow me to share my passions and heartaches with my warrior Mamanie?
Will it allot me a careless life without constantly thinking about not letting my tired Middle Eastern parents down, letting my political mouth run, run into borders I am banned and stapled to?
Will lOve give back my parents the 25+ years they continue spending to prove themselves as “pal(e)..atable” enough while guarding their iron-vested ventricles?
Will it shield me from the everlasting throbbing pain whenever anyone whose complexion resembles mine gets called, “a sand n***er”, “a terrorist”, “an exotic gift”, “a helpless burden”, “a security threat”?
Will loVe let my scars heal and restore how easily I once used to trust… how I trust my own community.. people who utter words like mine, hold the same values as me, deal with the same intergenerational traumas as my mind/ /soul/ /body, yet have no choice but to betray me when our only sanctuary is within each other’s arms?
Will lovE rewind history.. will it stop drones and badge accompanied guns from erasing lives as beautiful as the varied shades of the early evening glow to the dark night sky?
Will it allow us to scream, cry and express anger for our lost, broken and endlessly tortured without affirming repulsive tropes?
Will it enable people to return h o m e safely and for lands to be power-washed to rid them of everlasting rainy stains of fallen, rainbow eclipsed roses?
Will Love enable A community to take asylum within Meccas of the mind and have faith in Faith again?
Will it stop A community from cursing a queered Hijabi, Muslim Arab, Afghani-Iranian refugee, or dark skinned Afro-Iranian with the weapon of Western imprinted slurs and glares?
Will lOve let MY community raise their hands towards the sky again without fear, resentment and mistrust?
Will loVe let MY people move about with their spirits glowing on both the lands my ancestors cared for & the stolen and Ancestral ones my loved-ones are exiled to?
Would lovE grant US the opportunity of staring at a blank page with absolutely nothing to write about.
O n l y i f …
