By Nahida Izzat

With my roots uprooted
Swinging like a pendulum
Exile…home… exile… home…exile…
Where my culture is not celebrated
But threatened with extinction
Torn between two paradoxical worlds
My tortured soul exists
In a state of permanent suspension
Life on hold

With my heart torn apart
I dangle in between the realms of
Earth… heaven… earth… heaven… earth…
My body is here but my soul is far away
Running after my beloved’s mirage
I am endangered of annihilation
Frayed between two impossible worlds
My tormented core wavers
In a state of permanent suspension
Life on hold

With my memory shredded into pieces
I hang in the hue of non-existence
Past… future… past… future… past…
My brain is working
But my mind has gone missing
I am forcibly pushed towards insanity

Worn out between two dream worlds
My agonized being lingers
In a cosmos of thirteen dimensions
In a state of permanent suspension
Life on hold

Will I ever grow up again?

Life on hold
My internal clock is shattered into pieces
The 37 years of forced exile
Have no record in my book of memories
Chapters of lost titles
Blank sheets; page after page
Unseen pictures with no lines
Mysterious characters with no faces
Images that have neither shape nor colour
Invisible words that have no letters
Nor meanings
A sad story with an unwritten script

Life on hold
Ageing by the day
The head inflamed with grey hair
Swallowed by the dark sea of shame
Having to flee without facing the storm
Shaken by the gales of hurt and pain
With my roots uprooted
A freezing gloomy everlasting winter
Watching over my shoulders
Awaiting my decay

Life on hold
I was seven
I am seven
I will be seven
And I will stay seven
Until the day of my return
The pieces of my shattered clock
Will be put together, that day
And it will start ticking again
The pink and white blossoms of my spring
Will become something more than just a dream

– Nahida Izzat contributed this poem to PalestineChronicle.com.