By Dr. Adnan Bouzan

I am like you…
Nothing pleases me
except to arrange my disappointment
the way an exile arranges his final suitcases,
to tuck defeat into an inner pocket
so no one can see it,
and to leave hope a small window,
no wider than the palm of a waiting mother.

I am like you…
I walk the roads of departure,
not because I love travel,
but because the earth has narrowed
until it became my shoe.

I argue with snowflakes
as if they were witnesses to what happened,
and I bargain with the cold
to leave me a little warmth
to finish this sentence.
I speak to the freezing howl of pain
like an old friend
tired of too many visits
who no longer knocks on the door.

I am like you…
I turn the pages of sorrow
the way one turns the maps of torn countries,
searching for a city
not yet bombed by words,
for a name
not stripped from an identity card
and thrown into oblivion.

I flirt with coffins
one after another,
not out of love for death,
but out of fear that it might grow angry
if we ignore it.
I count the names of those who left
as if counting stars
in a sky without night,
and I learn how a human being
can be lighter than dust
when he finds no grave worthy of him.

I am like you…
Nothing pleases me…
except to see
columns of smoke rising,
not to announce the end of the world,
but to expose its silence.
Smoke is not a cloud;
it is black letters
sent by burning houses
to a conscience
that never opens its mail.

I am like you…
I see death approaching us
with confident steps;
it does not run,
for no one competes with it.
It arrives like an official clerk,
carrying our files
stamped with loss,
and asks us with a wounding calm:
Did you forget any of your dreams,
or did you lock the door well?

I am like you…
I love life
when it is stubborn,
when it rises from beneath the rubble
with a dust-covered face
and says:
I am still here.

And I hate life
when it shakes hands with its executioner
and smiles.

I am like you…
I have a homeland made of questions,
a house built of longing,
and a flag that does not wave
but trembles.
I carry my country in my language,
and when I grow tired,
I sit on a broken letter
and weep.

I am like you…
I own no political speech,
no national anthem fit for broadcast.
I own only this voice
that shatters
whenever it tries to be collective.

I say: we,
and I feel I am lying.
I say: I,
and I feel I am loading myself
with what it cannot bear.

I am like you…
a survivor by chance,
a witness by pain,
and a writer without a court of justice.
I write because silence
has sided with the killers,
and because words
are the last thing left to us
to prove
that we passed through here.

I am like you…
a human being
trying
to arrange his disappointment
so it does not turn
into a final homeland