Please Be Nice to Me

Hi, y'all! My name is Minal, and I am a queer Palestinian in diaspora. This blog is to share my poetry. I have been writing for years and have hardly showed them to anyone, so as I titled my blog, please be nice to me. If you are on mobile, the way my poems are formatted are hella fucked up, so please, read them online.

[poetrybyminal]

Drowning

I have never been so keenly aware, Of the taste of my own tears. How frequently do I swallow them? How much longer can I, Before I drown? I have never been so keenly aware, Of the blood on my hands, That I can't scrub off. I have never been so keenly aware, Of how much we have lost, How many candles can I light, For the souls that shouldn't haven gone?

I must have drowned and 200 days later, I come up for air, I have returned to my sorrow. I have become so good at swallowing my tears, I think they have forgotten how to fall.

They linger in my eyes blinding me, Until they take the jump to fall and I can see again. But must I see? I have seen too much.

My heart has seen sorrows that were once unfathomable. I have known the horrors of this world, At least I thought I had. What more can be destroyed?

My sorrow has learned new bounds, New sorrows the world could never have warned me of. The candles are gone now, too many dead to count so I stopped.

How can one pray for the safe passing of countless souls when it never stops?

200 days later, I am still drowning. But it is in my tears still? Or is it this hell, That I am drowning in?

[mintendo96]

I started this poem 200 days ago. I couldn't finish it then and honestly I can barely finish it now, but I am drowning and I think every Palestinian is fighting to stay afloat. I don't think this is my best work but 200 days into this second Nakba, into this new phase of genocide, I had to write. It has been 6 years since I could write about Palestine, but it seems like the only way through this grief has always been to write. Free Palestine.

[poetrybyminal]

It's been almost two years since I wrote this and I haven't finished a poem since. I'm still drowning I guess

[poetrybyminal]

Drowning

I have never been so keenly aware, Of the taste of my own tears. How frequently do I swallow them? How much longer can I, Before I drown? I have never been so keenly aware, Of the blood on my hands, That I can't scrub off. I have never been so keenly aware, Of how much we have lost, How many candles can I light, For the souls that shouldn't haven gone?

I must have drowned and 200 days later, I come up for air, I have returned to my sorrow. I have become so good at swallowing my tears, I think they have forgotten how to fall.

They linger in my eyes blinding me, Until they take the jump to fall and I can see again. But must I see? I have seen too much.

My heart has seen sorrows that were once unfathomable. I have known the horrors of this world, At least I thought I had. What more can be destroyed?

My sorrow has learned new bounds, New sorrows the world could never have warned me of. The candles are gone now, too many dead to count so I stopped.

How can one pray for the safe passing of countless souls when it never stops?

200 days later, I am still drowning. But it is in my tears still? Or is it this hell, That I am drowning in?

[poetrybyminal]

Let It Be Ours

Our fallen soldiers,    And people,       And children, Let them be ours.

Our Intifadas,    And protests,       And revolutions, Let them be ours.

We are not your martyrs. We are people destined for death in life,    As you cheer on our fight.

You celebrate us for being resilient,    For being anything, That you want to see.

Kill us. Kill me. And then celebrate my fight,    Celebrate our strength.

But, what happens,    When I don't have any strength left,    When my bones ache and my heart breaks,       Am I still your martyr?       Am I still your celebrated fighter?

I am tired of people,    With no context, Cheering on our failures and deaths.

You can stand beside us,    Fight with us,        Fight for us, But you cannot claim us,    Or our successes and failures.

We have so little to hold onto,    And sometimes, Out failures are our only source of hope.

Let it be ours.

[poetrybyminal]

Olive Trees

The trees surround me on all sides. Their twisted trunks bound to our ground, Bound to a land I should be bound to. They remind me of what once was ours.

An orchard on a hill, overlooking our home, Watching where we have existed,    For as long as they have. They have watched so much. They have served us for so long, Their fruits and oils nurturing our bodies, Their wood carved and held sacred,    Held sacred by me,    Even before I had ever seen them.

I watched for the first time. The trees that remembered us, When we were never meant to be remembered.

I tried to memorize the twisted lines,    Their rough husks,       Their beautiful smell. They were the parts of us that were allowed to,    Stay.

And even that promise was never secure. The trees that were watered with our sweat,    Our tears,       Our blood. Were burned to ash in an attempt to eradicate us, Burn us from memory,    From history,       From existence.

They kill us and then kill the marks we made. They displace us and destroy what was sacred. We have so little left to hold onto.

And now, that I had to leave,    What should have been our home. All I have left, All that I can hold close,    Is this little key chain,       A map of Palestine,          Carved out of olive wood.

[poetrybyminal]

We are the Other

Bullet hole riddled statues. Reconstruction through destruction. Make us civilized,    By taking away our civilization. We are children,    Fighting like idiots,       Fighting for millenia.

You projected your faults onto us. Forced us to adopt your ways,    Only to make fun of us.

We are the Other. The Other to fighters,    Because we are the strongest,       So strong we aren't even human. The Other to attackers,    Because we are vile terror incarnate. The Other to each other, to ourselves,    Because we don't know who we are,       What we stand for,          What is home,             What is security. We are the Other that you mock or revere,    For or against but never with.

What is left to us? Our land is occupied, Our homes are in danger, Our diasporic are lost. There is no way to get that back.

We are left with nothing.

Nothing but suffering. An Other defined only by that suffering. Nothing more, nothing less.

We are not okay.    We will never be okay.

It is too late to go back. We can only go forward, Who I will be and who I am are lost to me.

You have destroyed us,    And whatever we reconstruct won't be the same,    But it will be better,       It has to be better. You have destroyed us,    Rebuilt us in your image. We must destroy ourselves,    Destroy what you created. We need to start over.    We all need to start over.

All I know is I am a person.    We are all people.    We have to start there.

That is all we need to hold onto,    And all we have to hold onto.

[poetrybyminal]

Back Home

I want to go Back Home, I said as a child the word Ballad being all that I've heard.

I want to go Back Home, To the place my tata made the soap I cleanse my soul with, I said with a passion I didn't quite understand, yet.

I want to go Back Home, And have the fresh olives watered with our blood, I said with a need so desparate I could feel myself being torn into two.

I want to go Back Home, And see the one-room-home my sido grew up in, I said with a power that was given to me by my father and mother when I was just a baby.

I want to go Back Home, And see the ruins of ancient world, I said with the naivety of a child.

And like a sick and twisted comedy my mom looked at that innocent me    And smiled.       Smiled and laughed.

Said "Sweetie, it isn't your home to go back to."       In a way that still haunts my dreams. "Sweetie, the sidos and tatas and aunties and umos they call it back home. "They call it back home 'cause it was their home. "But, here, right now, is your home." And I stood confused and hurt by something I didn't understand. "Sweetie, back home means Taybeh" She said with a smile that I see so rarely.

Taybeh. A city surrounded by settlements that coral our existence. I meant Taybeh. The birthplace of my ancestry. I meant Taybeh. The place of that my family has lived and died in for 300 years. I meant Taybeh. A tiny Christian part of Ramallah with a history as old as time.

But Taybeh wasn't mine. It wasn't my home. But it sure as hell will be. And all those times I heard back home will be no more, Because we will be home and the walls, The walls will be wiped from existence just as my history had been. The olive trees will not just be stories any longer.

I will take my home back and there is nothing,    No bombs,       No wall,          No fucking IDF soldier can do to stop me. Because I am going back home.

[poetrybyminal]

Occupation

Occupation has always haunted my life, Lurking behind me always there just out of sight.

I remember being a kid performing a skit with my cousins, We shouted end the occupation over and over again. We didn't know when it started,      But we sure as hell knew we wanted it to stop. I shouted even though I didn't know what it meant,      Even though occupation was just word that I hated.

I did not know then the long weeks without running water. I did not know about the countless massacres. I did not know of the checkpoints and walls and settlements and jails, That exist purely to chorale our existence in an attempt to kill it all together.

For the first time in my life, I will see the occupation with my own eyes. The occupation terrifies me. I am scared to visit my homeland. I am scared to see the place my family has been for centuries. The place my father wants to return to,      And my mother runs away from. I am scared to meet children who know more about war then I ever will.

I am scared to learn how to cope with the lack of water,      Lack of movement,            Lack of air. I am scared to see giant walls hiding our existence from the world. I am scared of IDF soldiers with their guns causally and calmly,      Killing us.

But more than anything I am scared I will love it. I am scared that this place will be beautiful and wonderful. I am scared of falling in love with the trees just as my father had. I am scared,      I am petrified that,            I will want to return there.

to a place that once was our home, But, now, it's occupied,      No space left for me.