At Azraq Refugee Camp, in Syria, 
The sight of guards with 
their guns, a gallery of lost
things:
pictures of our dilapidated
huts, 
the race my father ran 
before the bullet outstripped
him of life.
Memory unbraids the sutures
we fight so hard to heal.

My father, a mountain of
endurance; yet, 
the gun's mouth is a storm of
destruction 
that leaves nothing in its wake.

Tonight, I feel the 
silence of my dead village.
There is a tiny space 
between what has happened and
what 
is going to happen – the only time my father could hasten his pace 
was before he got robbed of his breath. 

I do not have records of
survivors, 
but I witnessed we all ran:
myself, 
my siblings and the girl I
gifted my soul.
إنا لله و إنا إليه راجعون 
was my father's watchword, 
meaning: everything God gave us 
has its method of returning to
him.

To be a refugee is to seek
shelter from hands 
that stand on triggers, from
bullets that ripped 
our skins, and from the
flooding of our land with our blood.