Baba still reaches me in my sleep

I still hear his stories of war like shrapnel to armed fantasy

My dreams never survive

Each nylon string like barbed wire

Each melody a cry he never learned to escape

“why are you trying to make me return?” he asks

“where are you taking my blood?”

I retrace our lineage of shared bullets

From the one that claimed my friend

To the one that claimed his

I question it’s intention but lead won’t speak

I archive my memory

“For Allahs sake, why do you feel the need to return?” Baba pleads

But I can’t return where I was never seen

Where cousins await trial beneath ground

Where mother still wakes with a sharp pain of longing for those she knows are destined to leave

I still remember nights with her face pressed close to mine

My loose breathe on her cheek a reminder I’m alive

I still pretend to sleep

I still perform with her memory

On a stage in a dream

Or a stage that feels like a dream

There I have no face

I have no ending

But, for a moment, I have a place

And every witness

That pities, that applauds, that breaks

Their love, however wide, will never make a way

There’s no where to put it down when they disappear

There’s no home to escape to when I’m all bones & fear

I don’t remember returning

Why would I ever come back?

I never wanted ink this black

Or a voice this sad

Some days I wished to whisper

But whenever I found Baba

At any age

On the floor, on the dinner table

In every voice he raised

He took me there

Dreams ablaze

He took me there

The doctors gaze

He took me there

Mamas sharp pain

He took her there

Every weekend spent

In each room we met

I cannot return where Baba never left

Every chord an obituary

Each harmony a congregation for the dead

With every strum, they gather, waiting to be led

If only I could just sing like them

About palm trees & those who chose to leave

Those who can choose to return again