Like Names on Bathroom Walls
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under '08 Fall: Notes from Underground, Poetry, Print, Show Poems
We were children…
Born alive,
we survived some nights only prove to you we were odd looking miracles.
He was hardheaded like our dictators,
often found running clinch-fisted
feet stomping the concrete paving our playgrounds.
at mid day, we would write our names on the walls of narrow alleys,
let the sun rays stare at them.
they were everything we could call ours.
Besides…
We were just like our countries,
Arab, and messy.
our kings treated world maps as if they were high school bathroom stalls,
signed I was once here Mr.
As if the world ever gave a shit.
well, unlike our kings,
we were no fools.
we wrote the names and then laughed at ourselves.
“unapproved sovereignty”
we hid under our beds waiting to get caught by the parents.
like Saddam hiding underground waiting to get caught by America
it was only a matter of time.
but we…
we laughed,
and I wished the world would for once take notice of something beautiful before its gone.
Because after that mid-march night they held him down.
too much of a coward I watched from a distance,
Never seen him this fragile,
look,
never this weak,
cuz this time he wasnt stomping with his feet scaring the kids around,
his face was pressed against the concrete,
we was bent down.
arms and legs spread apart like a 9/11 airplane crashed on ground.
One older man had his pants down,
and the others were keeping the boy in place.
I was only a child but old enough to know
This isn’t how it should go,
Men would push in and out in the wrong places,
and they would alternate on him,
his screams might’ve been pleas
I dont know,
they were hesitant, they would break,
and then sound.
I hear him break under their weight,
If you were standing in my shoes, maybe you would’ve swallowed the silence too,
But maybe not, maybe you would’ve joined them,
They were done with him now,
his crevices filled with more semen than they could hold so it overflowed,
promising no children,
no legacies of whatever this is.
please understand we used to walk around with lollipop rings on our left hands.
I guess we were kids
naïve enough to think the world ever owed us something.
Maybe a dream, or a future,
After all, we were fools to think the world ever took notice.
They walked out on him,
one by one,
no one looked behind.
he stayed laying on his belly for a while
mind conflicted,
then he stood up and i wished he didnt
eyes pouring.
He’s naked
rectum burning,
and blood barely dripping down his thighs…
tell me what is there for us to love now,
we were curious kids, but we never wanted to know
we were as fragile as this,
left behind with
only disgust,
only nausea,
only stench of blood and sweat,
and semen
and wrong sex,
he was suicidal,
like civil wars raging within his skull’s confines.
untaught how to love,
we were beasts
no longer children
after this
not knowing what to expect from anyone around,
all we wanted is that they keep their fucking hands off us.
he survived that night, then chose to live though the ones after it,
only to make it to the day when he can look you in the eye
and tell you I was once here Mr.
like a name on the wall of a high school bathroom
begging you to take notice.
But on world maps he would always sign his name
Iraq.
see its you who’s doing it…
raping him.
see people and countries are the same thing,
he’s bent down,
and he has blood barely just barely dripping down his thighs.
…you’re pulling out now…
..walking away.
One Response to “Like Names on Bathroom Walls”
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Brandi Says:
October 14th, 2009 at 6:31 pmwow. im speechless. that was perfection aysha
