Each night I wrap myself in her, begging her / not to abandon me on this long dark road.

I tremble each time / a table of food / appears before me.

As for me—If I must die, let my body remain whole.

You were / The sigh of an orange tree / The hymn of faith, and love, and joy.

I know my poem won’t / prevent the next bomb / won’t even save itself / from choking under the rubble.

Maybe I would have more / than blurred memories of my land.

We write / to keep our names alive / to carve our stories into time.

Alone / I walk among the rubble of what was once our neighborhood / past the graves of memories and loved ones.

Lonely, I walk through my sorrowful land / Where dreams are throttled by a harsh hand.

He and she spoke by phone / the night before their wedding / certain their heartbeats/ could end the war/ the endless bombardment, the screams.

I am nineteen, they say / but do not mistake this number / for youth or innocence.

I’m searching for a place that might hold me apart from this chaos or from the life that presses in from every side.