find me a home

I Belong There
by Mahmoud Darwish

I belong there. I have many memories. I was born as everyone is born.
I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends, and a prison cell
with a chilly window! I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own.
I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon,
a bird's sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.
I have lived on the land long before swords turned man into prey.
I belong there. When heaven mourns for her mother, I return heaven to
her mother.
And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.
To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.
I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a
single word: Home.

And I wonder where do I belong...

"I don’t belong here…
in America...
I am torn as always
It has been a constant…being split
I live in my world, in my mind’s space
My mother is young still and my father is smoking still
but no...wait...now my father has gray hair and my mother has wrinkles
the walls in my house are yellow now...not biege
I can't find it. I mean my old home, where I belonged

No...this is not my home
I live as if I live in a motel...
some bags are still packed...some boxes I never opened
i wait...i wait to go back
but where?

And as always, I am running from one end to another finding a hook maybe
I never belonged here
I never belonged there either
The home is an idea, an idea adorned by memory
And I crave it so…
Will that craving ever end? Will this madness ever go?
Find me a home, a home where I am not a misfit, a home that can contain me
So that I am no longer torn and shuttling between worlds
Maybe I should learn to walk without memory