By When my homeland issues security checks in the Middle East
When security checks is another word for U.S. Airstrikes
When their home becomes just land
When they bomb the same country for six years
When free-land journalists broadcast it
When you get a chance to make a hashtag out of a country
When you run out of characters Tweeting names by a hashtag
When you say, “all lives matter” and, “pray for the world”
When your prayers are colorless
When over here, the sound of a plane exhales vacation
But whispers trigger warning to their hearts
When Facebook warns me of disturbing videos
And my heart is triggered to watch
When the trigger is the Middle East
When I am them
Grieving
In silence
When I am the silence
When im Arab
But American
When I have to throw the ‘but’ in there
As if being one is more comforting than the other
When I am Arab-American
When the hyphen is tempting you to name me terrorist
When you tempt the hyphen to be terrorist
When you terrorize the hyphen
And the hyphen is silent
When I am the silent hyphen
When I am neither Arab, nor American
When I am the middle man
Able to speak for both sides
When I am able to pick a side
When picking sides questions my loyalty
When my country questions my loyalty
Asking me to fight for their freedom
When I am not my country
When I am all countries
When I am fighting for freedom
When they are living a war,
And my family escaped one
When circumstance is the only difference between me and them
When different circumstances still allow me to grieve
When grieving keeps me still
When stillness is all they see
When I have nothing to send them
To check on their security
From my homeland
When my homeland issues another security check on them
When I am home striking different endings to land this poem
When this poem has no ending
When there is no end
When the end is the beginning
When I am
And forever will be
Stuck in the middle.
—
Written by Marwa Adina.
You fucked up at “all lives matter”