Fifty people were killed and 20 seriously injured when a white supremacist targeted two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. Authorities found an 87-page manifesto filled with an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim tirade.

I examine my DNA,
yet never find
a sign of superiority.
I am a white, but Arab,
man who wants to
leave this existence
with clean hands.

In my mind’s eye I see
the old and the women.
She: lying on the ground,
bloodied and weakly calling “help.”
He: spotted, wrinkled skin, next to her.
They now are in the bare hands of God.

History is full of stories
of might and force.
Will I be the one some day
who opens the door
to find my family murdered
in a mosque, church, synagogue?

A nightmare I would never wish on anyone;
a nightmare a person
of any true religion
could not commit.