al_quds/jerusalem

Al Quds – Jerusalem: The city of martyrs; the occupied city. A city painted a deep shade of crimson with the blood of the oppressed. A city occupied far longer than I have walked this earth; far long than my father has existed.

This city – I have never seen. Its air – I have never breathed. Its roads – I have never traveled.

I am a stranger at Jerusalem’s gate; I listen to the wailing passerby clutching the remnants of his home between scarred hands, his screams muffled under the background of a demolition. I hear a mother attempting to wash the blood off the ashen bodies of her children with bitter, scathing tears – the deafening sound of bullets boldly echoing within the confines of the occupiers jungle.

I am a stranger at Jerusalem’s gate; My eyes follow an army of worshipers kneeling on occupied ground, impregnated with their supplication, as they raise heavy hands up towards the sky. I watch a rampage emerging in the ‘holy land’ as a barrage of soldiers lay siege upon Al Aqsa, defiling sacred territory with a curtain of America-brand tear-gas canisters and grenades.

Ya Quds, Ya Qiblat as-Saleheen/ Oh Jerusalem, Oh Focus of the Righteous.

You are the perfume of the occupied territories, you are the fragrance worn around the necks of our women accompanied by a string of rocks from which our children use to throw in the face of occupation soldiers; precious pearls in their soft, dauntless hands.

Ya Quds/ Oh Jerusalem.

The thorns of conquest line your streets; our open wounds – inkwells, the gravestones of our martyrs – parchment.