Kiss me like you are grateful for me.
That I exist.
Not because I am special, no.
My flesh and blood are alive, now
on this planet.
I chose you to heal me.
I trust\ed you to embrace that honor
you promised you would.
Kiss me like you want me,
not want to want me;
to prove you are worthy of love
avoid loneliness,
feel you’ve won me in the secret war men have
over the territory of Cunt.
Kiss me with cellular knowledge
I am
the only combination of
the lonely bones entwined in a moving heap.
Frozen in spacetime.
In an apartment, in the Paris of the Middle East.
An address now occupied by
the flag of ISIS,
joyfear,
gun-shaped fallacies.
Kiss me in a way that honors the struggle
of the international incident that
I am.
Kiss me in a way that makes up for all the
angst, guilt, secrets
my existence spawned.
Kiss me like you are grateful for the spark,
the infidelity that
I am.
Kiss me remembering I was once a child,
conceived around the corner
from the now refugee-quarter.
We children.
We need to play,
{to be taken from the Truth of the species that we are.}
Kick the Can.
Hide and Seek.
Dress-up.
Overtly, and intensely, pretend.
Kiss me as if there is no end
climax,
satisfaction.
There is now, that is everything and enough.
Kiss me remembering
The luscious switch that turns off the noise;
Do you
hear the noise?
believe in the switch?
need it as I do?
Kiss me as an act of rebellion
our breath — the firestorm winds —
can reach the wounds of my ancestors,
reignite my land with
The Purpose.
No
power to own
win.
No
personified missiles
flags in territories
covert operations
pushing and pulling AGAINST gravity
thrusting forward like a marathon runner
winning the race, only to leave orphans behind.
Sometimes my story is just my story,
My decades of walking.
Then I wake to remember that my DNA dances
with the story of distant
mes, of yous, of uses, of thems.
Swaying in rhythm with each and every act
that did, or did not, happen.
I need you to help me forget this burden
{she worries}
or in my orphaned scurry to make it all go away,
I may very well forget you, in order to survive.
This is what orphans do.
This is what survivors do.
This, then, is what I do.
{she is starting to wonder}
This is not my wish,
and not up to me.
Nature wants me to find a way, stay alive;
forgive myself first is
to survive.
The firestorm winds are calling
me.
. . .
Featured Image: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images
Firestorm Winds appears in Hokis’s collection, OnBecoming: Aesthetic Evolution of this Rising Ancestor and was published in Stenorian Bitch.
Republished as Lebanon is a country reentering the news cycle; “‘Lebanon is in a death spiral’: Domestic workers dumped on the street amid unprecedented economic collapse,” The Independent, July 4, 2020.
“‘It feels like a failed state’: Lebanon’s crisis deepens as it awaits bailout,” The Guardian, July 4, 2020.
“Falling off a cliff’: Lebanon’s poor borrow to buy bread,” Reuters, July 3, 2020.
