1.

the memory of the desert.

we were not born on the oceans,

but on sand

that forgets its shape

whenever the wind speaks.

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2.

my mother taught me 

a tent is not a house.

unless the stories 

outlast storms.

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3.

They promised that the revolution 

would return our names

instead,

it gave us

that silence between the names.

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4. 

My brother wrote poetry 

on ammunition-box edges. 

He called it 

”Poems for those who reload.”

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5.

a letter to an absent father:

you left before I became your shadow.

now I find you in the way I fold my sleeves,

in stillness

that precedes my conversation with my son.

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6.

grandmother

she didn’t talk much.

but when she poured the tea,

silence filled the room.

as if her hand knew ancient incantations

better than her tongue.

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7. 

in Tunisia,

I dreamed of Misrata.

but in my dream

there were no checkpoints.

no sadness on the sidewalks.

only orange trees,

a wedding dress

untouched by ash.

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8.

he hasn’t played for years.

but his hands remember every string

like a worn rosary,

slick with regret.

he did not speak of the war

he simply hummed.

as if a melody could carry

what history failed to achieve.

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9.

children in the yard

draw with charcoal

on crumbling walls –

a tank, a flag, a sun, a mother’s face,

and they laugh

as if the future

hadn’t just forgotten them.

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10.

inheritance: I left home

with bullet holes,

a coffee pot that had lost its lid.

and a story no one agrees upon.

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11. 

the sand doesn’t care

by whom the land is seized?

but it remembers

every footprint

that ran toward the sound of gunfire

instead of walking away. 

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12.

the sun

was listening

to our whispers under the olive trees.

it flared up, and the heat intensified.

it kept listening, only

to shine with what she had heard

elsewhere.

13.

Sabha sky

at night,

a quiet market

where the stars bargain

for the right to shine.

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