War is not a Game

Iraq You drain the words out of my famished mouth
when you scream,
a sun-drenched cry of dripping dates and palm-green nostalgia.
You, a thought in the womb before birth,
And all the lines of crimson of afterlife,
a bosom of Tigress-scented compassion,
thrown across a desert of aimless caravans.
You, a wan wanderer, in the pages of my history...
Did you know that,
your rains washed away my name,
minutes after baptism,
tattooed tomorrow's memories for eternity...?
But then you turned your face east...
away from me...
Do you recognize me? ...
I am the homeless child that seeks your amputated arms for refuge,
a beggar of identity amidst your grains of blood-drenched sands.
Why have you lost me
when I had hung on to the trains of your abbai,
through all the wars,
all the sores...?
Left my minarets of war-torn memories to crumble into oblivion...
my faith in humankind disemboweled.
You are the truth
-if it ever existed,
belief, when it is all I know.
I know you now
like I know God.
For you are the entity they forbade,
the remnants of the game they played,
the devastated I...

For my beloved Iraq...

Zaineb Alani
39 years old
I'm an Iraqi, living in the US, who survived two wars growing up;
the 'war of attrition' with Iran, and the first Gulf war.
I have written many 'war poems.'
I currently reside in the US.

WAR

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