You,
A brilliant pigment, out in the sun for a little run,
You have the distant waves caress your skin as you lay on a grass that is not your own,
You have spices squeezing between your nostrils and accents resonating at the bottom of your heart,
You feel the salt of the ocean hanging from your lips and the air at the top of your mountains stuck to your ears,
Your tongue twists in a bizarre manner to fill gaps you never thought you had,
You find yourself speaking a language that is not yours, one that never was,
These sounds are unfamiliar with your mouth, yet they keep throwing themselves out like they did from your grandmother’s mouth long time ago,
You thought you could jump over letters and roll over syllables, but they keep reminding you of the wrongness of this freedom,
They give you a space to occupy,
They teach you not to extend your laugh or your hair beyond it,
To keep your hands inside the bubble,
To keep your breath for yourself,
You are given this blank space so just fill it and stay quiet.
You understand that your ع ,ح and خ do not seem as welcomed by the world as they are celebrated by your throat,
Your meanings are lost in translation
They have no directions to follow, and road signs, up in the air, are written in an alphabet they do not comprehend,
So the words keep floating around you, in the bubble that was drawn for you,
Jokes never seem to cross the bridge and family stories become laughing spots,
Your palate,
The space between your eyebrows,
The gap between your toes,
Your upper lip,
And the edge of your eyelashes try to coexist in a world that seems to overlook them,
Your very own paper palace crafted for you on a stolen land,
Your roots might be buried deep down in the soil,
Your leaves might be growing out of the branches,
This moment might be your home now and forever,
This shall remain a territory that has your name engraved in it but will never belong to you,
So rocks become the rings adorning your fingers,
The keys to your house are still warmly hiding in your right pocket,
And behind the fabric,
Bruises spread on your body like a map guiding you through the stories they are telling for you,
The only weapon you have left is you,
Your body taking the land that was once watered by your ancestors,
Your spirit learned pain through the centuries,
You know it will never leave,
Your mind is fighting ideas that were planted in it without your permission,
So, you ask yourself how you can leave a home that has taken care of you all these years,
But as you walk your fingers through the map on your thighs, along your legs, following paths of veins and arteries on your stomach,
Always remember that when you were drawn in the coloring book of life, God never questioned what shade of brown crayon to use for you, nor how much hair to stick above your upper lip,
God never trained your tongue to swirl a particular way, she choreographed it all on her own,
So remember,
You are not a blank to be filled,
You are a canvas so paint yourself whatever shade of the universe you want,
They will never be able to colonize that,
No matter how much they try.
By Mariam BEN SLAMA
