stories, magazines. I don't know why, but I was just astonished by this character.
So I used to steal Superman stories from the shop, you know.
I was stealing to live, to feed my soul.
Maybe I live in a city of masks in Beirut, or a city of ghosts,
or a city of beautiful faces and dyes at the same time, but at the same time like I know that
so many people do not like the existence of Palestinians in the city, but I don't blame them
for like we are all in the same circle, whether they accepted me or not. What is just left here
is the memories, and I am just like a man who is facing the memories of the others.
It is the mission of how to reconstruct the dirt. This is poetry. How to reconstruct the dirt,
maybe to build up like a rose just like of dust. I have this label as Palestinian refugee,
you know, so many people like take you as an past enemy, ghost enemy, let's say, but still you are
a sign of these ghosts for them. And for me like I don't blame really, because when it's war, it's
dirty, and it doesn't leave good memories at all. I have to face the fact that I'm living in Lebanon.
I was born here, not in Palestine. I've never been there. Palestine is an icon for me, but
my entire life is in Lebanon.
We're going to a place called Karakass Street next to the sea, where I used to live for
like more than 20 years. My childhood was there. My first love, my first kiss, my first
my first punch as well. After the war, my family was obliged to leave the camp
because they were killing people. They came here and we were living here as so many people who were
displaced. On top of the people, there are people in Lebanon, but our neighbor, he was a kid, and now
he's a big man. So my first home was living here, on the sofa inside. It was a sofa. I
put it here for my first girlfriend, my first love. So the new owner will be angry and he will
say, fuck people, they are mad, they come from nowhere to disturb my door, and he will not know
that I don't come from nowhere, I come from inside.
I go through so many texts and I write many texts, but I don't remember lots of them. This poem that
is stupid and silly compared to other poems, it is like still over there. We will have access
to go through inside.
It's a small flat, you know, directly heading to the street, and if we just open the window and
extend my head, I'll be overlooking the sea. My dad was pasting this and it's still here, you know?
This is still here. And this was also put by us, like this paste. So it is like, yes, even the
windows like this were put by my dad, the glass, because he didn't want anybody to see him.
Okay, I think we should leave because I think that I'm interrupted so much by my memories now.
I tell you something, if I'm given the right to return now to Palestine, I may not return
now because my whole life is here. I'm Palestinian living now and living this moment and living the
moment that is just a consequence of this time, you know, like time, let's say, flow.
I feel that I cannot be astonished by anything and I lost this like a few years ago because I
still remember so many parts of the wars. The traces of beauty that I just pick up from life
are enough and life is generous still with donating me these traces of beauty because I can do poetry.
